Personal narrative of travels to the equinoctial regions of America. Volume 1

244

VIEW FROM THE TURIMIQUIRI.

and which is considered to be higher than the mountain of the Brigantine, so well known by the sailors who frequent the coasts of Cumana. W e measured, by angles of elevation, and a basis, rather short, traced on the round summit, the peak of Cucurucho, which was about 350 toises higher than our station, so that its absolute height exceeded 1050 toises.

The view we enjoyed on the Turimiquiri is of vast extent, and highly picturesque. From the summit to the ocean we perceived chains of mountains extended in parallel lines from east to west, and bounding longitudinal valleys. These valleys are intersected at right angles by an infinite number of small ravines, scooped out by the torrents: the consequence is, that the lateral ranges are transformed into so many rows of paps, some round and others pyramidal. The ground in general is a gentle slope as far as the Imposible; farther on the precipices become bold, and continue so to the shore of the gulf of Cariaco. The form of this mass of mountains reminded us of the chain of the Jura; and the only plain that presents itself is the valley of Cumanacoa. W e seemed to look down into the bottom of a funnel, in which we could distinguish, amidst tufts of scattered trees, the Indian village of Aricagua. Towards the north, a narrow slip of land, the peninsula of Araya, formed a dark stripe on the sea, which, being illumined by the rays of the sun, reflected a strong light.

Beyond the peninsula the horizon was bounded by Cape Macanao, the black rocks of which rise amid the waters like an immense bastion.

The farm of the Cocollar, situated at the foot of the Turimiquiri, is in latitude 19째 9' 32". I found the dip of the needle 42 1째. The needle oscillates 229 times in ten minutes. Possibly masses of brown iron-ore, included in the calcareous rock, caused a slight augmentation in the intensity of the magnetic forces.

On the 14th of September we descended the Cocollar, toward the Mission of San Antonio. After crossing several savannahs strewed with large blocks of calcareous stone, we entered a thick forest. Having passed two ridges of extremely steep mountains,* we discovered a fine valley five or six * These ridges, which are rather difficult to climb towards the end of the rainy season, are distinguished by the names of Los Yepes and Fantasma.

MISSION OF SAN ANTONIO.

245

leagues in length, pretty uniformly following the direction of cast and west. In this valley are situated the Missions of San Antonio and Guanaguana; the first is famous on account of a small church with two towers, built of brick, in pretty good Style, and ornamented with columns of the Doric order. It is the wonder of the country. The prefect of the Capuchins completed the building of this church in less than two summers, though he employed only the Indians of his village. The mouldings of the capitals, the cornices, and a frieze decorated with suns and arabesques, are executed in clay mixed with pounded brick. If we are surprised to find churches in the purest Grecian style on the confines of Lapland,* we are still more struck with these first essays of art, in a region where everything indicates the wild state of man, and where the basis of civilization has not been laid by Europeans more than forty years.

I stopped at the Mission of San Antonio only to open the barometer, and to take a few altitudes of the sun. The elevation of the great square above Cumana is 216 toises.

After having crossed the village, we forded tho rivers Colorado and Guarapiche, both of which rise in the mountains of the Cocollar, and blend their waters lower down towards the east. The Colorado has a very rapid current, and becomes at its mouth broader than the Rhine. The Guarapiche, at its junction with the Eio Areo, is more than twenty-five fathoms deep. Its banks are ornamented by a superb gramen, of which I made a drawing two years afterward on ascending the river Magdalena. The distich-leaved stalk of this gramen often reaches the height of fifteen or twenty feet.† Towards evening we reached tho Mission of Guanaguana, the site of which is almost on a level with the village of San Antonio. The missionary received us cordially; he was an old man, and he seemed to govern his Indians with great * A t Skelefter, near Torneo.—Buch, Voyage en Norwège. † Lata, or cana brava.

It is a new genus, between aira and arundo.

This colossal gramen looks like the donax of Italy. This, the arundinaria of the Mississippi, (ludolfia, Willd., miegia of Persoon,) and the bamboos, are the highest gramens of the New Continent. Its seed has been carried to St. Domingo, where its stalk is employed to thatch the negroes' huts.

246

THE NATIVE VILLAGES. intelligence. The village has existed only thirty years on the spot it now occupies. Before that time it was more to the south, and was backed by a hill. It is astonishing with what facility the Indians are induced to remove their dwellings.

There are villages in South America which in less than half a century have thrice changed their situation. The native finds himself attached by ties so feeble to the soil he inhabits, that he receives with indifference the order to take down his house and to rebuild it elsewhere. A village changes its situation like a camp. Wherever clay, reeds, and the leaves of the palm or heliconia are found, a house is built in a few days. These compulsory changes have often no other motive than the caprice of a missionary, who, having recently arrived from Spain, fancies that the situation of the Mission is feverish, or that it is not sufficiently exposed to the winds. Whole villages have been transported several leagues, merely because the monk did not find the prospect from his house sufficiently beautiful or extensive.

Guanaguana has as yet no church. The old monk, who during thirty years had lived in the forests of America, observed to us that the money of the community, or the produce of the labour of the Indians, was employed first in the construction of the missionary's house, next in that of the church, and lastly in the clothing of the Indians. H e gravely assured us that this order of things could not be changed on any pretence, and that the Indians, who prefer a state of nudity to the slightest clothing, are in no hurry for their turn in the destination of the funds. The spacious abode of the padre had just been finished, and we had remarked with surprise, that the house, the roof of which formed a terrace, was furnished with a great number of chimnies that looked like turrets. This, our host told us, was done to remind him of a country dear to his recollection, and to picture to his mind the winters of Aragon amid the heat of the torrid zone. The Indians of Guanaguana cultivate cotton for their own benefit as well as for that of the church and the missionary. The natives have machines of a very simple construction to separate the cotton from the seeds. These are wooden cylinders of extremely small diameter, within which the cotton passes, and which are made to turn by a treadle. These machines, however imperfect,

VALLEY OF GUANAGUANA.

247

are very useful, and they begin to be imitated in other Missions. The soil of Guanaguana is not less fertile than that of Aricagua, a small neighbouring village, which has also preserved its ancient Indian name. A n almuda of land, 1850 square toises, produces in abundant years from 25 to 30 fanegas of maize, each fanega weighing 100 pounds. But here, as in other places, where the bounty of nature retards industry, a very small number of acres are cleared, and the culture of alimentary plants is neglected. Scarcity of subsistence is felt, whenever the harvest is lost by a protracted drought. The Indians of Guanaguana related to us as a fact not uncommon, that in the preceding year they, their wives, and their children, had been for three months al monte; by which they meant, wandering in the neighbouring forests, to live on succulent plants, palm-cabbages, fern roots, and fruits of wild trees. They (lid not speak of this nomade life as of a state of privation.

The beautiful valley of Guanaguana stretches towards the cast, opening into the plains of Punzera and Terecen. W e wished to visit those plains, and examine the springs of petroleum, lying between the river Guarapiche and the Rio A r e o ; but the rainy season had already arrived, and we were in daily perplexity how to dry and preserve the plants we had collected. The road from Guanaguana to the village of Punzera runs either by San Felix or by Caycara and Guayuta, which is a farm for cattle (hato) of the missionaries. In this last place, according to the report of the Indians, great masses of sulphur are found, not in a gypseous or calcareous rock, but at a small depth below the soil, in a bed of clay. This singular phenomenon appears to me peculiar to America; we found it also in the kingdom of Quito, and in New Spain. On approaching Punzera, we saw in the savannahs small bags, formed of a silky tissue suspended from the branches of the lowest trees. It is the seda silvestre, or wild silk of the country, which has a beautiful lustre, but is very rough to the touch. The phalĂŚna which produces it is probably analagous with that of the provinces of Guanaxuato and Antioquia, which also furnish wild silk.

We found in the beautiful forest of Punzera two trees known by the names of curucay and canela; the former, of which

248

LAKE OF ASPHALTUM.

wo shall speak hereafter, yields a resin very much sought after by the Piaches, or Indian sorcerers; the leaves of the latter have the smell of the real cinnamon of Ceylon.* From Punzera the road leads by Terecin and Nueva Palencia, (a new colony of Canarians,) to the port of S a n Juan, situated on the right bank of the river Areo; and it is only by crossing this river in a canoe, that the traveller can arrive at the famous petroleum springs (or mineral tar) of the Buen Pastor. They were described to us as small wells or funnels, hollowed out by nature in a marshy soil. This phenomenon reminded us of the lake of asphaltum, or of chapapote, in the island of Trinidad,† which is distant from the Buen Pastor, in a straight line, only thirty-five sea leagues.

Having long struggled to overcome the desire we felt to descend the Guarapiche to the Golfo Triste, we took the direct road to the mountains. The valleys of Guanaguana and Caripe are separated by a kind of dyke, or calcareous ridge, well known by the name of the Cuchilla‡ de Guanaguana. W e found this passage difficult, because at that time we had not climbed the Cordilleras; but it is by no means so dangerous as the people at Cumana love to represent it. The path is indeed in several parts only fourteen or fifteen inches broad; and the ridge of the mountain, along which the road runs, is covered with a short slippery turf. The slopes on each side are steep, and the traveller, should he stumble, might slide down to the depth of seven or eight hundred feet. Nevertheless, the flanks of the mountain are steep declivities rather than precipices ; and the mules of this country are so sure-footed • Is this the Laurus cinnamomoides of Mutis ? What is that other cinnamon tree which the Indians call tuorco, common in the mountains of Tocayo, and at the sources of the Rio Uchere, the hark of which is mixed with chocolate ? Father Caulin gives the name of curucay to the Copaifera officinalis, which yields the Balsam of Capivi.—Hist. Corograf., pp.

24 and 3 4 . † Laguna de la Brea, south-east of the port of Naparima. There is another spring of asphaltum on the eastern coast of the island, in the bay of Mayaro. ‡ Literally " blade of a knife." Throughout all Spanisn America the name of *'cuchilla " is given to the ridge of a mountain terminated on each side by very steep declivities.

SAGACITY OF THE; MULE.

249

that they inspire the greatest confidence. Their habits are identical with those of the beasts of burden in Switzerland and the Pyrenees. In proportion as a country is wild, the instinct of domestic animals improves in address and sagacity. When the mules feel themselves in danger, they stop, turning their heads to the right and to the left; and the motion of their ears seems to indicate that they reflect on the decision they ought to take. Their resolution is slow, but always just, if it be spontaneous; that is to say, if it be not thwarted or hastened by the imprudence of the traveller. On the frightful roads of the Andes, during journeys of six or seven months across mountains furrowed by torrents, the intelligence of horses and beasts of burden is manifested in an astonishing manner. Thus the mountaineers are heard to say, " I will not give you the mule whose step is the easiest, but the one which is most intelligent (la mas racional)." This popular expression, dictated by long experience, bears stronger evidence against the theory of animated machines, than all the arguments of speculative philosophy.

When we had reached the highest point of the ridge or cuchilla of Guanaguana, an interesting spectacle unfolded itself before us. W e saw comprehended in one view the vast savannahs or meadows of Maturin and of the Pio Tigre;* the peak of the Turimiquiri ;† and an infinite number of parallel ridges, which, seen at a distance, looked like the waves of the sea. On the north-east opens the valley in which is situated the convent of Caripe. The aspect of this valley is peculiarly attractive, for being shaded by forests, it forms a strong contrast with the nudity of the neighbouring mountains, which are bare of trees, and covered with gramineous plants. W e found the absolute height of the Cuchilla to be 548 toises.

Descending from the ridge by a winding path, we entered into a completely woody country. The soil is covered with moss, and a new species of drosera,§ which by its form reminded us of the drosera of the Alps. The thickness of the forests, and the force of vegetation, augmented • These natural meadows are part of the llanos or immense steppes bordered by the Orinoco. † El Cucurucho. § Drosera tenella.

250

DESCENT FROM THE CUCHILLA.

as we approached the convent of Caripe.

Everything here changes its aspect, even to the rock that accompanied us from Punta Delgada. The calcareous strata becomes thinner, forming graduated steps, which stretch out like walls, cornices, and turrets, as in the mountains of Jura, those of Pappenheim in Germany, and near Oizow in Galicia. The colour of the stone is no longer of a smoky or bluish grey; it becomes white; its fracture is smooth, and sometimes even imperfectly conchoidal. I t is no longer the calcareous formation of the Higher Alps, but a formation to which this serves as a basis, and which is analagous to the Jura limestone. In the chain of the Apennines, between Pome and Nocera, I observed this same immediate superposition.* It indicates, not the transition from one rock to another, but the geological affinity existing between two formations. According to the general type of the secondary strata, recognised in a great part of Europe, the Alpine limestone is separated from the Jura limestone by the muriatiferous gypsum ; but often this latter is entirely wanting, or is contained as a subordinate layer in the Alpine limestone. In this case the two great calcareous formations succeed each other immediately, or are confounded in one mass.

The descent from the Cuchilla is far shorter than the ascent. We found the level of the valley of Caripe 200 toises higher than that of the valley of Guanaguana.† A group of mountains of little breadth separates two valleys, one of which is of delicious coolness, while the other is famed for the heat of its climate.

These contrasts, so common in Mexico, New Grenada, and Peru, are very rare in the north-east part of South America. Thus Caripe is the only one of the high valleys of New Andalusia which is much inhabited. " In like manner, near Geneva, the rock of the Mole, belonging to the Alpine limestone, lies under the Jura limestone which forms Mount Salève. † Absolute height of the convent above the level of the sea, 412 toises.

CONVENT OF CARIPE.

251

CHAPTER VII. Convent of Caripe. — Cavern of the Guacharo.—Nocturnal Birds.

AN alley of perseas led us to the Hospital of the Aragonese Capuchins. W e stopped near a cross of Brazil-wood, erected in the midst of a square, and surrounded with benches, on which the infirm monks seat themselves to tell their rosaries. The convent is backed by an enormous wall of perpendicular rock, covered with thick vegetation. The stone, which is of resplendent whiteness, appears only here and there between the foliage. It is difficult to imagine a more picturesque spot. It recalled forcibly to my remembrance the valleys of Derbyshire, and the cavernous mountains of Muggendorf, in Franconia. Instead of the beeches and maple trees of Europe we here find the statelier forms of the ceiba and the palm-tree, the praga and irasse. Numberless springs gush from the sides of the rocks which encircle the basin of Caripe, and of which the abrupt slopes present, towards the south, profiles of a thousand feet in height. These springs issue, for the most part, from a few narrow crevices. The humidity which they spread around favours the growth of the great trees; and the natives, who love solitary places, form their conucos along the sides of these crevices. Plantains and papaw trees are grouped together with groves of arborescent fern; and this mixture of wild and cultivated plants gives the place a peculiar charm. Springs are distinguished from afar, on the naked flanks of the mountains, by tufted masses of vegetation* which at first sight seem suspended from the rocks, and * Among the interesting plants of the valley of Caripe, we found for the first time a calidium, the trunk of which was twenty feet high (C. arboreum) ; the Mikania micrantha, which may probably possess some of the alexipharmic properties of the famous guaco of the Choco; the Bauhinia obtusifolia, a very large tree, called guarapa by the Indians; the Weinmannia glabra ; a tree psychotria, the capsules of which, when rubbed between the fingers, emit a very agreeable orange smell; the Dorstenia Houstoni (raiz de resfriado) ; the Martynia Craniolaiia, the white flowers of which are six or seven inches long; a scrophularia, having the aspect of the Verbascum miconi, and the leaves of which, all radical and hairy, are marked with silvery glands.

252

INMATES

OF

THE

CONVENT.

descending into the valley, they follow the sinuosities of the torrents.

W e were received with great hospitality by the monks of Caripe. The building has an inner court, surrounded by an arcade, like the convents in Spain. This enclosed place was highly convenient for setting up our instruments and making observations. W e found a numerous society in the convent. Young monks, recently arrived from Spain, were just about to settle in the Missions, while old infirm missionaries sought for health in the fresh and salubrious air of the mountains of Caripe. I was lodged in the cell of the superior, which contained a pretty good collection of books. I found there, to my surprise, the Teatro Critico of Feijoo, the Lettres Edifiantes, and the Traité d'Electricité by abbé Nollet. It seemed as if the progress of knowledge advanced even in the forests of America. The youngest of the capuchin monks of the last Mission had brought with him a Spanish translation of Chaptal's Treatise on Chemistry, and he intended to study this work in the solitude where he was destined to pass the remainder of his days. During our long abode in the Missions of South America we never perceived any sign of intolerance. The monks of Caripe were not ignorant that I was born in the protestant part of Germany. Furnished as I was with orders from the court of Spain, I had no motives to conceal from them this fact ; nevertheless, no mark of distrust, no indiscreet question, no attempt at controversy, ever diminished the value of the hospitality they exercised with so much liberality and frankness.

The convent is founded on a spot which was anciently called Areocuar. Its height above the level of the sea is nearly the same as that of the town of Caracas, or of the inhabited part of the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. Thus the mean temperatures of these three points, all situated within the tropics, are nearly the same. The necessity of being well clothed at night, and especially at sunrise, is felt at Caripe. W e saw the centigrade thermometer at midnight, between 16° and 17 5° ; in the morning, between 19° and 20°. About one o'clock it had risen Only to 21°, or 22 5°. This temperature is sufficient for the development of the productions of the torrid zone ; though, com-

INDIAN ALCALDES.

253

pared with the excessive heat of the plains of Cumana, we might call it the temperature of spring. Water exposed to currents of air in vessels of porous clay, cools at Caripe, during the night, as low as 13째.

Experience has proved that the temperate climate and rarefied air of this spot are singularly favourable to the cultivation of the coffee-tree, which is well known to flourish on heights. The prefect of the capuchins, an active and enlightened man, has introduced into the province this new branch of agricultural industry. Indigo was formerly planted at Caripe, but the small quantity of fecula yielded by this plant, which requires great heat, caused the culture to be abandoned. W e found in the conuco of the community many culinary plants, maize, sugar cane, and five thousand coffeetrees, which promised a fine harvest. The friars were in hopes of tripling the number in a few years. We cannot help remarking the uniform efforts for the cultivation of the soil which are manifested in the policy of the monastic hierarchy.

Wherever convents have not yet acquired wealth in the New Continent, as formerly in Gaul, in Syria, and in the north of Europe, they exercise a happy influence on the clearing of the ground and the introduction of exotic vegetation. At Caripe, the conuco of the community presents the appearance of an extensive and beautiful garden. The natives are obliged to work in it every morning from six to ten, and the alcaldes and alguazils of Indian race overlook their labours. These men arc looked upon as great state functionaries, and they alone have the right of carrying a cane. The selection of them depends on the superior of the convent. The pedantic and silent gravity of the Indian alcaldes, their cold and mysterious air, their love of appearing in form at church and in 1 he assemblies of the people, force a smile from Europeans.

W e were not yet accustomed to these shades of the Indian character, which we found the same at the Orinoco, in Mexico, and in Peru, among people totally different in their manners and their language. The alcaldes came daily to the convent, less to treat with the monks on the affairs of the Mission, than under the pretence of inquiring after the health of the newly-arrived travellers. As we gave them brandy, their visits became more frequent than the monks desired.

254

CAVERN

OF

THE

GUACHARO.

That which confers most celebrity on the valley of Caripe, besides the extraordinary coolness of its climate, is the great Cueva, or Cavern of the Guacharo.* In a country where the people love the marvellous, a cavern which gives birth to a river, and is inhabited by thousands of nocturnal birds, the fat of which is employed in the Missions to dress food, is an everlasting object of conversation and discussion. The cavern, which the natives call “ a mine of fat,” is not in the valley of Caripe itself, but three short leagues distant from the convent, in the direction of west-south-west. It opens into a lateral valley, which terminates at the Sierra del Guacharo.

We set out for the Sierra on the 18th of September, accompanied by the alcaldes, or Indian magistrates, and the greater part of the monks of the convent. A narrow path led us at first towards the south, across a fine plain, covered with beautiful turf. W e then turned westward, along the margin of a small river which issues from the mouth of the cavern. W e ascended during three quarters of an hour, sometimes in the water, which was shallow, sometimes between the torrent and a wall of rocks, on a soil extremely slippery and miry. The falling down of the earth, the scattered trunks of trees, over which the mules could scarcely pass, and the creeping plants that covered the ground, rendered this part of the road fatiguing. W e were surprised to find here, at scarcely 500 toises above the level of the sea, a cruciferous plant, Raphanus pinnatus. Plants of this family are very rare in the tropics; they have in some sort a northern character, and therefore we never expected to see one on the plain of Caripe at so inconsiderable an elevation. The northern character also appears in the Galium caripense, the Valeriana scandens, and a sanicle not unlike the S. marilandica.

A t the foot of the lofty mountain of the Guacharo, we were * The province of Guacharucu, which Delgado visited in 1534, in the expedition of Hieronimo de Ortal, appears to have been situated south or south-east of Macarapana. Has its name any connexion with those of the cavern and the bird ? or is this last of Spanish origin ? (Laet, Nova Orbis, p. 676). Guacharo means in Castilian “one who cries and laments;” now the bird of the cavern of Caripe, and the guacharaca (Phasianus parraka), are very noisy birds.

SITUATION OF THE CAVERN.

255

only four hundred paces from the cavern, without yet perceiving the entrance. The torrent runs in a crevice hollowed out by the waters, and we went on under a cornice, the projection of which prevented us from seeing the sky.

The path winds in the direction of the river; and at the last turning we came suddenly before the immense opening of the grotto. The aspect of this spot is majestic, even to the eye of a traveller accustomed to the picturesque scenery of the higher Alps. I had before this seen the caverns of the peak of Derbyshire, where, lying down flat in a boat, we proceeded along a subterranean river, under an arch two feet high. I had visited the beautiful grotto of Treshemienshiz, in the Carpathian mountains, the caverns of the Hartz, and those of Franconia, which are vast cemeteries,* containing bones of tigers, hyænas, and bears, as large as our horses.

Nature in every zone follows immutable laws in the distribution of rocks, in the form of mountains, and even in those changes which the exterior crust of our planet has undergone. So great a uniformity led me to believe that the aspect of the cavern of Caripe would differ little from what I had observed in my preceding travels. The reality far exceeded my expectations. I f the configuration of the grottoes, the splendour of the stalactites, and all the phenomena of inorganic nature, present striking analogies, the majesty of equinoctial vegetation gives at the same time an individual character to the aperture of the cavern.

The Cueva del Guacharo is pierced in the vertical profile of a rock. The entrance is towards the south, and forms an arch eighty feet broad and seventy-two high. The rock which surmounts the grotto is covered with trees of gigantic height. The mammee-tree and the genipa, † with large and * The mould, which has covered for thousands of years the soil of the caverns of Gaylenreuth and Muggendorf in Franconia, emits even now choke-damps, or gaseous mixtures of hydrogen and nitrogen, which rise to the roof of the caves. This fact is known to the persons who show these caverns to travellers ; and when I was director of the mines of the Fichtelberg, I observed it frequently in the summer-time. M . Laugier found in the mould of Muggendorf, besides phosphate of lime, 0 10 of animal matter. I was struck, during my stay at Steeben, with the ammoniacal and fœtid smell produced by it, when thrown on a red-hot iron. † Caruto, Genipa americana. The flower, at Caripe, has sometimes five, sometimes six stamens.

256

INTERIOR

OF

THE

CAVERN.

shining leaves, raise their branches vertically towards the sky; whilst those of the courbaril and the erythrina form, as they extend, a thick canopy of verdure. Plants of the family of pothos, with succulent stems, oxalises, and orchideæ of a singular structure,* rise in the driest clefts of the rocks; while creeping plants waving in the winds are interwoven in festoons before the opening of the cavern. W e distinguished in these festoons a bignonia of a violet blue, the purple dolichos, and for the first time, that magnificent solandra,† which has an orange-coloured flower and a fleshy tube more than four inches long.

But this luxury of vegetation embellishes not only the external arch, it appears even in the vestibule of the grotto. W e saw with astonishment plantain-leaved heliconias eighteen feet high, the praga palm-tree, and arborescent arums, following the course of the river, even to those subterranean places. The vegetation continues in the cave of Caripe as in those deep crevices of the Andes, half-excluded from the light of day, and does not disappear till, penetrating into the interior, we advance thirty or forty paces from the entrance. W e measured the way by means of a cord; and we went on about four hundred and thirty feet without being obliged to light our torches. Daylight penetrates far into this region, because the grotto forms but one single channel, keeping the same direction, from south-east to north-west. Where the light began to fail, we heard from afar the hoarse sounds of the nocturnal birds; sounds which the natives think belong exclusively to those subterraneous places.

The guacharo is of the size of our fowls. It has the mouth of the goat-suckers and procnias, and the port of those vultures whose crooked beaks are surrounded with stiff silky hairs. Suppressing, with M . Cuvier, the order of picæ, we must refer this extraordinary bird to the passeres, the genera of which are connected with each other by almost imperceptible transitions. It forms a new genus, very different from the goatsucker, in the loudness of its voice, in the vast strength of its beak (containing a double * A dendrobium, with a gold-coloured flower, spotted with black, three inches long. † Solandra scandens. It is the gousaticha of the Chayma Indians.

GUACHARO

257

BIRDS.

tooth), and in its feet without the membranes which unite the anterior phalanges of the claws. It is the first example of a nocturnal bird among the Passeres dentirostrati.

Its habits present analogies both with those of the goatsuckers and of the alpine crow.* The plumage of the guacharo is of a dark bluish grey, mixed with small streaks and specks of black. Large white spots of the form of a heart, and bordered with black, mark the head, wings, and tail.

The eyes of the bird, which are dazzled by the light of day, are blue, and smaller than those of the goatsucker. The spread of the wings, which are composed of seventeen or eighteen quill feathers, is three feet and a half. The guacharo quits the cavern at nightfall, especially when the moon shines. It is almost the only frugiferous nocturnal bird yet known; the conformation of its feet sufficiently shows that it does not hunt like our owls. It feeds on very hard fruits, like the nutcracker† and the pyrrhocorax. The latter nestles also in clefts of rocks, and is known by the name of the night-crow.

The Indians assured us that the guacharo does not pursue either the lamellicornous insects or those phalænæ which serve as food to the goatsuckers. A comparison of the beaks of the guacharo and the goatsucker serves to denote how much their habits must differ. It would be difficult to form an idea of the horrible noise occasioned by thousands of these birds in the dark part of the cavern. Their shrill and piercing cries strike upon the vaults of the rocks, and are repeated by the subterranean echoes. The Indians showed us the nests of the guacharos by fixing a torch to the end of a long pole. These nests were fifty or sixty feet high above our heads, in holes in the shape of funnels, with which the roof of the grotto is pierced like a sieve.

The noise increased as we advanced, and the birds were scared by the light of the torches of copal. When this noise ceased a few minutes around us, we heard at a distance the plaintive cries of the birds roosting in other ramifications of the cavern. It seemed as if different groups answered each other alternately. * Corvus Pyrrhocorax. † Corvus caryocatactes, C. glandarius. Our Alpine crow builds its nest near the top of Mount Libanus, in subterranean caverns, nearly like the guacharo. It also has the horribly shrill cry of the latter.

VOL.

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258

GUACHARO BIRDS.

The Indians enter the Cueva del Guacharo once a-year, near midsummer. They go armed with poles, with which they destroy the greater part of the nests. A t that season several thousand birds are killed; and the old ones, as if to defend their brood, hover over the heads of the Indians, uttering terrible cries. The young,* which fall to the ground, are opened on the spot. Their peritoneum is found extremely loaded with fat, and a layer of fat reaches from the abdomen to the anus, forming a kind of cushion between the legs of the bird. This quantity of fat in frugivorous animals, not exposed to the light, and exerting very little muscular motion, reminds us of what has been observed in the fattening of geese and oxen. It is well known how greatly darkness and repose favour this process. T h e nocturnal birds of Europe are lean, because, instead of feeding on fruits, like the guacharo, they live on the scanty produce of their prey.

A t the period commonly called, at Caripe, the oil harvest,†the Indians build huts with palm-leaves, near the entrance, and even in the porch of the cavern. There, with a fire of brushwood, they melt in pots of clay the fat of the young birds just killed. This fat is known by the name of butter or oil (manteca, or aceite) of the guacharo. It is half liquid, transparent, without smell, and so pure that it may bo kept above a year without becoming rancid. At the convent of Caripe no other oil is used in the kitchen of the monks but that of the cavern; and we never observed that it gave the aliments a disagreeable taste or smell.

The race of the guacharos would have been long ago extinct, had not several circumstances contributed to its preservation. The natives, restrained by their superstitious ideas, seldom have courage to penetrate far into the grotto. It appears also, that birds of the same species dwell in neighbouring caverns, which are too narrow to be accessible to man. Perhaps the great cavern is repeopled by colonies which forsake the small grottoes; for the missionaries assured us, that hitherto no sensible diminution of the birds have been observed. Young guacharos have been sent to the port of Cumana, and have lived there several days without taking any nourishment, the seeds offered to them * Called Los pollos del Guncharo. †La cosecha de la manteca.

259

INTERIOR OF THE CAVERN.

not suiting their taste. When the crops and gizzards of the young birds are opened in the cavern, they are found to contain all sorts of hard and dry fruits, which furnish, under the singular name of guacharo seed (semilla del guacharo), a very celebrated remedy against intermittent fevers. The old birds carry these seeds to their young. They are carefully collected, and sent to the sick at Cariaco, and other places of the low regions, where fevers are generally prevalent.

As we continued to advance into the cavern, we followed the banks of the small river which issues from it, and is from twenty-eight to thirty feet wide. W e walked on the banks, as far as the hills formed of calcareous incrustations permitted us. Where the torrent winds among very high masses of stalactites, we were often obliged to descend into its bed, which is only two feet deep. W e learned with surprise, that this subterranean rivulet is the origin of the river Caripe, which, at the distance of a few leagues, where it joins the small river of Santa Maria, is navigable for canoes. It flows into the river Areo under the name of Caño de Terezen. We found on the banks of the subterranean rivulet a great quantity of palm-tree wood, the remains of trunks, on which the Indians climb to reach the nests hanging from the roofs of the cavern. The rings, formed by the vestiges of the old footstalks of the leaves, furnish as it were the steps of a ladder perpendicularly placed.

The Grotto of Caripe preserves the same direction, the same breadth, and its primitive height of sixty or seventy feet, to the distance of 472 metres, or 1458 feet, accurately measured. W e had great difficulty in persuading the Indians to pass beyond the anterior portion of the grotto, the only part which they annually visit to collect the fat. The whole authority of ‘ los padres’ was necessary to induce them to advance as far as the spot where the soil rises abruptly at an inclination of sixty degrees, and where the torrent forms a small subterranean cascade.* The natives connect mystic ideas with this cave, inhabited by nocturnal birds; they believe that the souls of their ancestors sojourn in the deep * W e find the phenomenen of a subterranean cascade, but on a much larger scale, in England, at Yordas Cave, near Kingsdale in Yorkshire.

s

2

260

NATIVE SUPERSTITIONS.

recesses of the cavern. “ Man,” say they, “ should avoid places which are enlightened neither b y the sun (zis), nor by the moon (nuna).” ‘To go and join the guacharos,’ is with them a phrase signifying to rejoin their fathers, to die.

The magicians (piaches) and the poisoners (imorons) perform their nocturnal tricks at the entrance of the cavern, to conjure the chief of the evil spirits (ivorokiamo). Thus in every region of the earth a resemblance may b o traced in the early fictions of nations, those especially which relate to two principles governing the world, the abode of souls after death, the happiness of the virtuous and the punishment of the guilty.

The most different and most barbarous languages present a certain number of images, which are the same, because they have their source in the nature of our intelligence and our sensations. Darkness is everywhere connected with the idea of death. The Grotto of Caripe is the Tartarus of the Greeks ; and the guacharos, which hover over the rivulet, uttering plaintive cries, remind us of the Stygian birds.

A t the point where the river forms the subterranean cascade, a hill covered with vegetation, which is opposite to the opening of the grotto, presents a very picturesque aspect. It is seen at the extremity of a straight passage, 240 toises in length. The stalactites descending from the roof, and resembling columns suspended in the air, are relieved on a back-ground of verdure. The opening of the cavern appeared singularly contracted, when we saw it about the middle of the day, illumined by the vivid light reflected at once from the sky, the plants, and the rocks.

The distant light of day formed a strange contrast with the darkness which surrounded us in the vast cavern. W e discharged our guns at a venture, wherever the cries of the nocturnal birds and the flapping of their wings, led us to suspect that a great number of nests were crowded together.

After several fruitless attempts M. Bonpland succeeded in killing a couple of guacharos, which, dazzled by the light of the torches, seemed to pursue us. This circumstance afforded me the means of making a drawing of this bird, which had previously been unknown to naturalists. W e climbed, not without difficulty, the small hill whence the subterranean rivulet descends.

We saw that the grotto was perceptibly

VEGETATION

IN

THE

CAVERN.

261

contracted, retaining only forty feet in height, and that it continued stretching to north-east, without deviating from its primitive direction, which is parallel to that of the great valley of Caripe.

In this part of the cavern, the rivulet deposits a blackish mould, very like the matter which, in the grotto of Muggendorf, in Franconia, is called “the earth of sacrifice.”* W e could not discover whether this fine and spongy mould falls through the cracks which communicate with the surface of the ground above, or is washed down by the rain-water penetrating into the cavern. It was a mixture of silex, alumina, and vegetable detritus. We walked in thick mud to a spot where we beheld with astonishment the progress of subterranean vegetation. The seeds which the birds carry into the grotto to feed their young, spring up wherever they fix in the mould which covers the calcareous incrustations.

Blanched stalks, with some half-formed leaves, had risen to the height of two feet. It was impossible to ascertain the species of these plants, their form, colour, and aspect having been changed by the absence of light. These traces of organization amidst darkness forcibly excited the curiosity of the natives, who examined them with silent meditation inspired by a place they seemed to dread. They evidently regarded these subterranean plants, pale and deformed, as phantoms banished from the face of the earth. To me the scene recalled one of the happiest periods of my early youth, a long abode in the mines of Freyberg, where I made experiments on the effects of blanching (étiolement), which are very different, according as the air is pure or overcharged with hydrogen or azote.

The missionaries, with all their authority, could not prevail on the Indians to penetrate farther into the cavern. As the roof became lower the cries of the guacharos were more and more shrill. W e were obliged to yield to the pusillanimity of our guides, and trace back our steps. The appearance of the cavern was however very uniform. W e found that a bishop of St. Thomas of Guiana had gone farther than ourselves. He had measured nearly 2500 feet from the mouth * Opfer-erde of the cavern of Höhle mountain pierced entirety through)

Berg (or Hole Mountain,—a

262

EGRESS

FROM

THE

CAVERN.

to the spot where he stopped, but the cavern extended still farther. The remembrance of this fact was preserved in the convent of Caripe, without the exact period being noted.

The bishop had provided himself with great torches of white Castile wax. We had torches composed only of the bark of trees and native resin. The thick smoke which issued from these torches, in a narrow subterranean passage, hurts the eyes and obstructs the respiration.

On turning back to go out of the cavern, we followed the course of the torrent. Before our eyes became dazzled with the light of day we saw on the outside of the grotto the water of the river sparkling amid the foliage of the trees which shaded it. It was like a picture placed in the distance, the mouth of the cavern serving as a frame. Having at length reached the entrance, we sealed ourselves on the bank of the rivulet, to rest after our fatigues. W e were glad to be beyond the hoarse cries of the birds, and to leave a place where darkness does not offer even the charm of silence and tranquillity. W e could scarcely persuade ourselves that the name of the Grotto of Caripe had hitherto been unknown in Europe ;* for the guacharos alone might have sufficed to render it celebrated. These nocturnal birds have been no where yet discovered, except in the mountains of Caripe and Cumanacoa. The missionaries had prepared a repast at the entry of the cavern. Leaves of the banana and the vijao,† which have a silky lustre, served us as a table-cloth, according to the custom of the country. Nothing was wanting to our enjoyment, not even remembrances, which are so rare in those countries, where generations disappear without leaving a trace of their existence.

Before we quit the subterranean rivulet and the nocturnal birds, let us cast a last glance at the cavern of the Guacharo, and the whole of the physical phenomena it pre• It is surprising that Father Gili, author of the Saggio di Storia Americana, does not mention it, though he had in his possession a manuscript written in 1780 at the convent of Caripe. I gave the first information respecting the Cueva del Guacharo in 1800, in my letters to Messrs.

Delambre and Delamétherie, published in the Journal de Physique. † Heliconia bihai, Linn. The Creoles have changed the b of the Haytian word bihao into v, and the h into j, agreeably to the Castilian pronunciation.

PHYSICAL

PHENOMENA.

263

sents. When we have step by step pursued a long series of observations modified by the localities of a place, we love to stop and raise our views to general considerations. Do the great cavities, which are exclusively called caverns, owe their origin to the same causes as those which have produced the lodes of veins and of metalliferous strata, or the extraordinary phenomenon of the porosity of rocks ? Do grottoes belong to every formation, or to that period only when organized beings began to people the surface of the globe ?

These geological questions can be solved only so far as they are directed by the actual state of things, that is, of facts susceptible of being verified by observation.

Considering rocks according to the succession of eras, we find that primitive formations exhibit very few caverns.

The great cavities which are observed in the oldest granite, and which are called fours (ovens) in Switzerland and in the south of France, when they arc lined with rock crystals, arise most frequently from the union of several contemporaneous veins of quartz,* of feldspar, or of fine-grained granite. The gneiss presents, though more seldom, the same phenomenon; and near Wunsiedel,†at the Fichtelgebirge, I had an opportunity of examining crystal fours of two or three feet diameter, in a part of the rock not traversed by veins. W e are ignorant of the extent of the cavities which subterranean fires and volcanic agitations may have produced in the bowels of the earth in those primitive rocks, which, containing considerable quantities of amphibole, mica, garnet, magnetic iron-stone, and red schorl (titanite), appear to be anterior to granite. W e find some fragments of these rocks among the matters ejected by volcanoes. The cavities can be considered only as partial and local phenomena; and their existence is scarcely any contradiction to the notions we have acquired from the experiments of Maskelyne and Cavendish on the mean density of the earth. * Gleichzeitige Trßmmer. To these stone veins which appear to be of the same age as the rock, belong the veins of talc and asbestos in serpentine, and those of quartz traversing schist (Thonschiefer).

Jameson on Contemporaneous Veins, in the Mem. of the Wernerian Soc. †In Franconia, south-east of Luchsburg.

264

FORMATION OF GROTTOES.

In the primitive mountains open to our researches, real grottoes, those which have some extent, belong only to calcareous formations, such as the carbonate or sulphate of lime.

The solubility of these substances appears to have favoured the action of the subterranean waters for ages. The primitive limestone presents spacious caverns as well as transition limestone,* and that which is exclusively called secondary.

If these caverns be less frequent in the first, it is because this stone forms in general only layers subordinate to the mica-slate,† and not a particular system of mountains, into which the waters may filter, and circulate to great distances.

The erosions occasioned by this element depend not only on its quantity, but also on the length of time during which it remains, the velocity it acquires by its fall, and the degree of solubility of the rock. I have observed in general, that the waters act more easily on the carbonates and the sulphates of lime of secondary mountains than on the transition limestones, which have a considerable mixture of silex and carbon.

On examining the internal structure of the stalactites which line the walls of caverns, we find in them all the characters of a chemical precipitate.

As we approach those periods in which organic life developes itself in a greater number of forms, the phenomenon of grottoes becomes more frequent. There exist several under the name of baumen,‡ not in the ancient sandstone to which

the great coal formation belongs, but in the Alpine limestone, and in the Jura limestone,which is often only the superior part of the Alpine formation. The Jura limestone§ so abounds with * In the primitive limestone are found the Kuetzel-loch, near Kaufungen in Silesia, and probably several caverns in the islands of the Archipelago. In the transition limestone we remark the caverns of Elbingerode, of Rubeland, and of Scharzfeld, in the Hartz; those of the Salzfluhe in the Grisons ; and, according to Mr. Greenough, that of Torbay in Devonshire. † Sometimes to gneiss, as at the Simplon, between Dovredo and Crevola. ‡ In the dialect of the German Swiss, Balmen. The Baumen of the Sentis, of the Mole, and of the Beatenberg, on the borders of the lake of Thun, belong to the Alpine limestone. § I may mention only the grottoes of Boudry, Motiers-Travers, and Valorbe, in the Jura; the grotto of Balme near Geneva; the caverns between Muggendorf and Gaylenreuth in Franconia ; Sowia Jama, Ogrod. zimiec, and Wlodowice, in Poland.

THEIR GENERAL SHAPE.

265

caverns in both continents, that several geologists of the school of Freyberg have given it the name of cavern-limestone (hĂśhlenkalkstein). It is this rock which so often interrupts the course of rivers, by engulfing them into its bosom. In this also is formed the famous Cueva del Gruacharo, and the other grottoes of the valley of Caripe. The muriatiferous gypsum,* whether it be found in layers in the Jura or Alpine limestone, or whether it separate these two formations, or lie between the Alpine limestone and argillaceous sandstone, also presents, on account of its great solubility, enormous cavities, sometimes communicating with each other at several leagues distance. After the limestone and gypseous formations, there would remain to be examined, among the secondary rocks, a third formation, that of the argillaceous sandstone, newer than the brine-spring formations ; but this rock, composed of small grains of quartz cemented by clay, seldom contains caverns; and when it does, they are not extensive.

Progressively narrowing towards their extremity, their walls are covered with a brown ochre.

We have just seen, that the form of grottoes depends partly on the nature of the rocks in which they are found; but this form, modified by exterior agents, often varies even in the same formation. The configuration of caverns, like the outline of mountains, the sinuosity of valleys, and so many other phenomena, present at first sight only irregularity and confusion. The appearance of order is resumed, when we can extend our observations over a vast space of ground, which has undergone violent, but periodical and uniform revolutions. From what I have seen in the mountains of Europe, and in the Cordilleras of America, caverns may be divided, according to their interior structure, into three classes. Some have the form of large clefts or crevices, like veins not filled with o r e ; such as the cavern of PosenmĂźller, in Franconia, Elden-hole, in the peak of Derbyshire, and the Sumideros of Chamacasapa in Mexico.

Other caverns are open to the light at both ends. These are rocks really pierced; natural galleries, which run through a solitary mountain: such are the HĂśhleberg of Muggendorf, and the famous cavern called Dantoe by the * Gypsum of Bottendorf,

schlottengyps.

266

VARIETY OF STRUCTURE.

Ottomite Indians, and the Bridge of the Mother of God, by the Mexican Spaniards. It is difficult to decide respecting the origin of these channels, which sometimes serve as beds for subterranean rivers. Are these pierced rocks hollowed out by the impulse of a current ? or should we rather admit that one of the openings of the cavern is owing to a falling down of the earth subsequent to its original formation; to a change in the external form of the mountain, for instance, to a new valley opened on its flank ? A third form of caverns, and the most common of the whole, exhibits a succession of cavities, placed nearly on the same level, running in the same direction, and communicating with each other by passages of greater or less breadth.

To these differences of general form are added other circumstances not less remarkable. It often happens, that grottoes of little space have extremely wide openings; whilst we have to creep under very low vaults, in order to penetrate into the deepest and most spacious caverns. The passages which unite partial grottoes, are generally horizontal. I have seen some, however, which resemble funnels or wells, and which may be attributed to the escape of some elastic fluid through a mass before being hardened. "When rivers issue from grottoes, they form only a single, horizontal, continuous channel, the dilatations of which are almost imperceptible; as in the Cueva del Guacharo we have just described, and the cavern of San Felipe, near Tehuilotepec in the western Cordilleras of Mexico. The sudden disappearance* of the river, which took its rise from this last cavern, has impoverished a district in which farmers and miners equally require water for refreshing the soil and for working hydraulic machinery.

Considering the variety of structure exhibited by grottoes in both hemispheres, we cannot but refer their formation to causes totally different. When we speak of the origin of caverns we must choose between two systems of natural philosophy: one of these systems attributes every thing to instantaneous and violent commotions (for example, to the elastic force of vapours, and to the heavings occasioned * In the night of the 16th April, 1802.

CAUSES OF FORMATION.

267

by volcanoes); while the other rests on the operation of small powers, which produce effects almost insensibly by progressive action. Those who love to indulge in geological hypotheses must not, however, forget the horizontality so often remarked amidst gypseous and calcareous mountains, in the position of grottoes communicating with each other by passages. This almost perfect horizontality, this gentle and uniform slope, appears to be the result of a long abode of the waters, which enlarge by erosion clefts already existing, and carry off the softer parts the more easily, as clay or muriate of soda is found mixed with the gypsum and fetid limestone. These effects are the same, whether the caverns form one long and continued range, or several of these ranges lie one over another, as happens almost exclusively in gypseous mountains.

That which in shelly or Neptunean rocks is caused by the action of the waters, appears sometimes to be in the volcanic rocks the effect of gaseous emanations* acting in the direction where they find the least resistance. When melted matter moves on a very gentle slope, the great axis of the cavity formed by the elastic fluids is nearly horizontal, or parallel to the plane on which the movement of transition takes place. A similar disengagement of vapours, joined to the elastic force of the gases, which penetrate strata softened and raised up, appears sometimes to have given great extent to the caverns found in trachytes or trappean porphyries. These porphyritic caverns, in the Cordilleras of Quito and Peru, bear the Indian name of Machays.† They are in general of little depth. They are lined with sulphur, and differ by the enormous size of their openings from those observed in volcanic tufas ‡ in Italy, at Teneriffe, and in * At Vesuvius, the Duke de la Torre showed me, in 1805, in currents of recent lava, cavities extending in the direction of the current, six or seven feet long and three feet high. These little volcanic caverns were lined with specular iron, which cannot be called oligiste iron, since M .

Gay-Lussac’s last experiments on the oxides of iron. † Machay is a word of the Quichua language, commonly called by the Spaniards ‘ the Incas’ language.’ Callancamachay means “ a cavern as large as a house,” a cavern that serves as a tambo or caravansarai. ‡ Sometimes fire acts like water in carrying off masses, and thus the cavities may be caused by an igneous, though more freouently by an aqueous erosion or solution.

268

STALACTITES AND INCRUSTATIONS.

the Ancles. It is by connecting in the mind the primitive, secondary, and volcanic rocks, and distinguishing between the oxidated crust of the globe, and the interior nucleus, composed perhaps of metallic and inflammable substances, that we may account for the existence of grottoes everywhere. They act in the economy of nature as vast reservoirs of water and of elastic fluids.

The gypseous caverns glitter with crystallized selenites.

Vitreous crystallized plates of brown and yellow stand out on a striated ground composed of layers of alabaster and fetid limestone. The calcareous grottoes have a more uniform tint. They are more beautiful, and richer in stalactites, in proportion as they are narrower, and the circulation of air is less free. By being spacious, and accessible to air, the cavern of Caripe is almost destitute of those incrustations, the imitative forms of which are in other countries objects of popular curiosity. I also sought in vain for subterranean plants, those cryptogamia of the family of the Usneaceæ which we sometimes find fixed on the stalactites, like ivy on walls, when we penetrate for the first time into a lateral grotto.* The caverns in mountains of gypsum often contain mephitic emanations and deleterious gases. It is not the sulphate of lime that acts on the atmospheric air, but the clay slightly mixed with carbon, and the fetid limestone, so often mingled with the gypsum. W e cannot yet decide, whether the swinestone acts as a hydrosulphuret, or by means of a bituminous principle.† Its property of absorbing o x y g e n gas is known to all the miners of Thuringia.

It is the same as the action of the carburetted clay of the * Lichen tophicola was discovered when the beautiful cavern of Rosenmüller in Franconia was first opened. The cavity containing the lichen was found closed on all sides by enormous masses of stalactite. † That description of fetid limestone called by the German mineralogists stinkstein is always of a blackish brown colour. It is only by decomposition that it becomes white, after having acted on the surrounding air. The stinkstein which is of secondary formation, must not be confounded with a very white primitive granular limestone of the island of Thasos, which emits, when scraped, a smell of sulphuretted hydrogen.

This marble is coarser grained than Carrara (Marmor lunense). It was frequently employed by the Grecian sculptors, and I often picked up fragments of it at the Villa Adriani, near Rome.

FOSSIL REMAINS.

269

gypseous grottoes, and of the great chambers (sinkwerke) dug in mines of fossil salt which are worked by the introduction of fresh water. The caverns of calcareous mountains are not exposed to those decompositions of the atmospheric air, unless they contain bones of quadrupeds, or the mould mixed with animal gluten and phosphate of lime, from which arise inflammable and fetid gases.

Though we made many enquiries among the inhabitants of Caripe, Cumanacoa, and Cariaco, we did not learn that they had ever discovered in the tavern of Guacharo either the remains of carniverous animals, or those bony breccias of herbivorous animals, which are found in the caverns of Germany and Hungary, and in the clefts of the calcareous rocks of Gibraltar. The fossil bones of the megatherium, of the elephant, and of the mastodon, which travellers have brought from South America, have all been found in the light soil of the valleys and table-lands.

Excepting the megalonyx,* a kind of sloth of the size of an ox, described

by Mr. Jefferson, I know not a single instance of the skeleton of an animal buried in a cavern of the New World.

The extreme scarcity of this geological phenomenon will appear the less surprising to us, if we recollect, that in France, England, and Italy, there are also a great number of grottoes in which we have never met with any vestige of fossil bones.

Although, in primitive nature, whatever relates to ideas of extent and mass is of no great importance, yet I may observe, that the cavern of Caripe is one of the most spacious known to exist in limestone formations. It is at least 900 metres or 2800 feet in length.† Owing to the different degrees of solubility in rocks, it is generally not in calcareous mountains, but in gypseous formations, that we find the most extensive succession of grottoes. In Saxony there are some in gypsum several leagues in length ; * The megalonyx was found in the caverns of Green Briar, in Virginia, at the distance of 1500 leagues from the megatherium, which resembles it very much, and is of the size of the rhinoceros. † The famous Baumannshöhle in the Hartz, according to Messrs.

Gilbert and Ilsen, is only 578 feet in length; the cavern of Scharzfeld 3 5 0 ; that of Gaylenreuth 304 ; that of Antiparos 3 0 0 .

But according to Saussure, the Grotto of Balme is 1300 feet long.

270

GENERAL TEMPERATURE.

for instance, that of Wimelburg, which communicates with the cavern of Cresfield.

The determination of the temperature of grottoes presents a field for interesting observation. The cavern of Caripe, situated nearly in the latitude of 10° 10', consequently in the centre of the torrid zone, is elevated 506 toises above the level of the sea in the gulf of Cariaco. We found that, in every part of it, in the month of September, the temperature of the internal air was between 18 1° and 18 9° of the centesimal thermometer; the external atmosphere being at 16 2°. At the entrance of the cavern, the thermometer in the open air was at 17 6°; but when immersed in the water of the little subterranean river, it marked, even to the end of the cavern. 16 8° . These experiments are very interesting, if we reflect on the tendency to equilibrium of heat, in the waters, the air, and the earth. When I left Europe, men of science were regretting that they had not sufficient data on what is called, ‘the temperature of the interior of the globe;’ and it is but very recently that efforts have been made, and with some success, to solve the grand problem of subterranean meteorology. The stony strata that form the crust of our planet, are alone accessible to our examination ; and we now know that the mean temperature of these strata varies not only with latitudes and heights, but that, according to the position of the several places, it performs also, in the space of a year, regular oscillations round the mean heat of the neigbouring atmosphere. The time is gone by when men were surprised to find, in other zones, the heat of grottoes and wells differing from that observed in the caves of the observatory at Paris. The same instrument which in those caves marks 12°, rises in the subterraneous caverns of the island of Madeira, near Funchal, to 16 2° ; in Joseph’s Well, at Cairo* to 21 2° ; in the grottoes of the island of Cuba to 22° or 23°.† This increase is nearly in proportion to that of the mean temperature of the atmosphere, from latitude 48° to the tropics. * and † Mr.

At Funchal (lat. 32° 37') the mean temperature of the air is 20 4°, at Cairo (lat. 30° 2'), according to Nouet, it is 22 4°.

The mean temperature of the air at the Havannah, according to Ferrer, is 25 6°.

GENERAL TEMPERATURE.

271

W e have just seen that, in the Cueva del Guacharo, the water of the river is nearly 2° colder than the ambient air of the cavern. The water, whether in filtering through the rocks, or in running over stony beds, doubtless imbibes the temperature of these beds.

The air contained in the grotto, on the contrary, is not in repose; it communicates with the external atmosphere. Though under the torrid zone, the changes of the external temperature are exceedingly trilling, currents are formed, which modify periodically the internal air. It is consequently the temperature of the waters, that of 16 8°, which we might look upon as the temperature of the earth in those mountains, if we were sure that the waters do not descend , rapidly from more elevated neighbouring mountains.

It follows from these observations, that when we cannot obtain results perfectly exact, we find at least under each zone certain numbers which indicate the maximum and minimum. At Caripe, in the equinoctial zone, at an elevation of 500 toises, the mean temperature of the globe is not below 16 8°, which was the degree indicated by the water of the subterranean river. W e can even prove that this temperature of the globe is not above 19°, since the air of the cavern, in the month of September, was found to be at 18 7°. As the mean temperature of the atmosphere, in the hottest month, does not exceed 19 5°,* it is probable that a thermometer in the grotto would not rise higher than 19° at any season of the year. * The mean temperature of the month of September at Caripe is 18 5 ° ; and on the coast of Cumana, where we had opportunities of making numerous observations, the mean heat of the warmest months differs only 1 8° from that of the coldest.

LIFE AT THE MISSION.

CHAPTER V I I I .

Departure from Caripe.—Mountain and Forest of Santa Maria.—Mission of Catuaro.—Port of Cariaco.

THE days we passed at the Capuchin convent in the mountains of Caripe, glided swiftly away, though our manner of living was simple and uniform. From sunrise to nightfall we traversed the forests and neighbouring mountains, to collect plants. When the winter rains prevented us from undertaking distant excursions, we visited the huts of the Indians, the conuco of the community, or those assemblies in which the alcaldes every evening arrange the labours of the succeeding day. W e returned to the monastery only when the sound of the bell called us to the refectory to share the repasts of the missionaries. Sometimes, very early in the morning, we followed them to the church, to attend the doctrina, that is to say, the religious instruction of the Indians. It was rather a difficult task to explain dogmas to the neophytes, especially those who had but a very imperfect knowledge of the Spanish language. On the other hand, the monks are as yet almost totally ignorant of the language of the Chaymas ; and the resemblance of sounds confuses the poor Indians and suggests to them the most whimsical ideas.

Of this I may cite an example. I saw a missionary labouring earnestly to prove that infierno, hell, and invierno, winter, were not one and the same thing; but as different as heat and cold. The Chaymas are acquainted with no other winter than the season of rains ; and consequently they imagined the ‘Hell of the whites’ to be a place where the wicked are exposed to frequent showers. The missionary harangued to no purpose: it was impossible to efface the first impression produced by the analogy between the two consonants.

He could not separate in the minds of the neophytes the ideas of rain and hell; invierno and infierno.

After passing almost the whole day in the open air, we employed our evenings, at the convent, in making notes,

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CLOUDY АТМОSРHЕRЕ.

drying our plants, and sketching those that appeared to form new genera. Unfortunately the misty atmosphere of a valley, where the surrounding forests till the air with an enormous quantity of vapour, was unfavourable to astronomical obser­ vations. I spent a part of the nights waiting to take advantage of the moment when some star should be visible between the clouds, near its passage over the meridian. I often shivered with cold, though the thermometer only sunk to 16°, which is the temperature of the day in our climates towards the end of September. The instruments remained set up in the court of the convent for several hours, yet I was almost always disappointed in my expectations. Some good observations of Fomalhaut and of Deneb have given 10° 10' 14" as the latitude of Caripe; which proves that the position indicated in the maps of Caulin is 18' wrong, and in that of Arrowsmith 14'.

Observations of corresponding altitudes of the sun having given me the true time, within about 2", I was enabled to determine the magnetic variation with precision, at noon.

It was, on tho.20th of September, 1799, 3° 15' 30" north-cast; consequently 0° 58' 15" less than at Cumana. I f we attend to the influence of the horary variations, which in these countries do not in general exceed 8', we shall find, that at considerable distances the variation changes less rapidly than is usually supposed. The dip of the needle was 42 75°, cen­ tesimal division, and the number of oscillations, expressing the intensity of the magnetic forces, rose to 229 in ten minutes.

The vexation of seeing the stars disappear in a misty sky was the only disappointment we felt in the valley of Caripe.

The aspect of this spot presents a character at once wild and tranquil, gloomy and attractive. In the solitude of these mountains we are perhaps less struck by the new impressions we receive at every step, than with the marks of resemblance we trace in climates the most remote from each other. The hills by which the convent is backed, are crowned with palmtrees and arborescent ferns. In the evenings, when the sky denotes rain, the air resounds with the monotonous howling of the alouate apes, which resembles the distant sound of wind when it shakes the forest. Yet amid these strange sounds, these wild forms of plants, and these prodigies of a new world, nature everywhere speaks to man in a voice VOL.

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274

DEPARTURE FROM THE CONVENT.

familiar to him. The turf that overspreads the soil; the old moss and fern that cover the roots of the trees ; the torrents that gush down the sloping banks of the calcareous rocks ; in line, the harmonious accordance of tints reflected by the waters, the verdure, and the sky ; everything recalls to the traveller, sensations which he has already felt.

The beauties of this mountain scenery so much engaged us, that we were very tardy in observing the embarrassment felt by our kind entertainers the monks. They had but a slender provision of wine and wheaten bread; and although in those high regions both are considered as belonging merely to the luxuries of the table, yet we saw with regret, that our hosts abstained from them on our account. Our portion of bread had already been diminished three-fourths, yet violent rains still obliged us to delay our departure for two days.

How long did Ibis delay appear! It made us dread the sound of the bell that summoned us to the refectory.

W e departed at length on the 22nd of September, followed by four mules, laden with our instruments and plants. W e had to descend the north-east slope of the calcareous Alps of New Andalusia, which we have called the great chain of the Brigantine and the Cocollar. The mean elevation of this chain scarcely exceeds six or seven hundred toises : in respect to height and geological constitution, we may compare it to the chain of the Jura. Notwithstanding the inconsiderable elevation of the mountains of Cumana, the descent is extremely difficult and dangerous in the direction of Cariaco.

The Cerro of Santa Maria, which the missionaries ascend in their journey from Cumana to their convent at Caripe, is famous for the difficulties it presents to travellers. On comparing these mountains with the Andes of Peru, the Pyrenees, and the Alps, which we successively visited, it has more than once occurred to us, that the less lofty summits are sometimes the most inaccessible.

On leaving the valley of Caripe, we first crossed a ridge of hills north-cast of the convent. The road led us along a continual ascent through a vast savannah, as far as the table-land of Guardia de San Augustin. W e there halted to wait for the Indian who carried the barometer. We found ourselves to be at 533 toises of absolute elevation, or a little higher than the bottom of the cavern of Guacharo. The savannahs

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DESCENT FROM THE MOUNTAINS.

or natural meadows, which yield excellent pasture for the cows of the convent, are totally devoid of trees or shrubs. I t is the domain of the monocotyledonous plants; for amidst the gramina only a few Maguey* plants rise here and there; their flowery stalks being more than twenty-six feet high.

Having reached the table-land of Guardia, we appeared to be transported to the bed of an old lake, levelled by the longcontinued abode of the waters. W e seemed to trace the sinuosities of the ancient shore in the tongues of land which jut out from the craggy rock, and even in the distribution of the vegetation. The bottom of the basin is a savannah, while its banks are covered with trees of full growth. This is probably the most elevated valley in the provinces of Venezuela and Cumana. One cannot but regret, that a spot favoured by so temperate a climate, and which without doubt would be fit for the culture of corn, is totally uninhabited.

From the table-land of Guardia we continued to descend, till we reached the Indian village of Santa Cruz. W e passed at first along a slope extremely slippery and steep, to which the missionaries had given the name of Baxada del Purgatorio, or Descent of Purgatory. It is a rock of schistose sandstone, decomposed, covered with clay, the talus of which appears frightfully steep, from the effect of a very common optical illusion. ¨When we look down from the top to the bottom of the hill the road seems inclined more than 6 0 ° . The mules in going down draw their hind legs near to their fore legs, and lowering their cruppers, let themselves slide at a venture. The rider runs no risk, provided he slacken the bridle, thereby leaving the animal quite free in his movements. Prom this point we perceived towards the left the great pyramid of Guacharo. The appearance of this calcareous peak is very picturesque, but we soon lost sight of it, on entering the thick forest, known by the name of the Montana de Santa Maria. W e descended without intermission for seven hours. It is difficult to conceive a more tremendous descent; it is absolutely a road of steps, a kind of ravine, in which, during the rainy season, impetuous torrents dash from rock to rock. The steps are from two to three feet high, and the beasts of burden, after measuring with their eyes the space necessary to let their load pass between * Agave Americana.

T 2

276

INSTINCT OF THE MULES.

the trunks of the trees, leap from one rock to another.

Afraid of missing their mark, we saw them stop a few minutes to scan the ground, and bring together their four feet like wild goats. I f the animal does not reach the nearest block of stone, he sinks half his depth into the soft, ochreous clay, that fills up the interstices of the rock. When the blocks are wanting, enormous roots serve as supports for the feet of men and beasts. Some of these roots are twenty inches thick, and they often branch out from the trunks of the trees much above the level of the soil. The Creoles have sufficient confidence in the address and instinct of the mules, to remain in their saddles during this long and dangerous descent.

Fearing fatigue less than they did, and being accustomed to travel slowly for the purpose of gathering plants and examining the nature of the rocks, we preferred going down on foot; and, indeed, the care which our chronometers demanded, left us no liberty of choice.

The forest that covers the steep flank of the mountain of Santa Maria, is one of the thickest I ever saw. The trees are of stupendous height and size. Under their bushy, deep green foliage, there reigns continually a kind of dim daylight, a peculiar sort of obscurity, of which our forests of pines, oaks, and beech-trees, convey no idea. Notwithstanding its elevated temperature, it is difficult to believe that the air can dissolve the quantity of water exhaled from the surface of the soil, the foliage of the trees, and their trunks: the latter are covered with a drapery of orchideĂŚ, peperomia, and other succulent plants. With the aromatic odour of the flowers, the fruit, and even the wood, is mingled that which we perceive in autumn in misty weather. Here, as in the forests of the Orinoco, fixing our eyes on the top of the trees, we discerned streams of vapour, whenever a solar ray penetrated, and traversed the dense atmosphere. Our guides pointed out to us among those majestic trees, the height of which exceeded 120 or 130 feet, the curucay of Terecen.

It yields a whitish liquid, and very odoriferous resin, which was formerly employed by the Cumanagoto and Tagiri Indians, to perfume their idols. The young branches have an agreeable taste, though somewhat astringent. Next to the curucay and enormous trunks of hymenĂŚa, (the diameter of which was more than nine or ten feet), the trees which

ARBORESCENT FERNS.

277

most excited our attention were the dragon's blood (Croton sanguilluum), the purple-brown juice of which flows down a whitish bark; the calahuala fern, different from that of Peru, but almost equally medicinal;* and the palm-trees, irasse, macanilla, corozo, and praga.† The last yields a very savoury palm-cabbage, which we had sometimes eaten at the convent of Caripe. These palms with pinnated and thorny leaves formed a pleasing contrast to the fern-trees. One of the latter, the Cyathea speciosa,‡grows to the height of more than thirty-five feet, a prodigious size for plants of this family. W e discovered here, and in the valley of Caripe, five new kinds of arborescent ferns. § In the time of Linnæus, botanists knew no more than four on both continents.

W e observed that the fern-trees are in general much more rare than the palm-trees. Nature has confined them to temperate, moist, and shady places. They shun the direct rays of the sun, and while the pumos, the corypha of the steppes and other palms of America, flourish on the barren and burning plains, these ferns with arborescent trunks, which at a distance look like palm-trees, preserve the character and habits of cryptogamous plants. They love solitary places, little light, moist, temperate and stagnant air.

I f they sometimes descend towards the sea-coast, it is only under cover of a thick shade. The old trunks of the cyathea and the meniscium are covered with a carbonaceous powder, which, probably being deprived of hydrogen, has a metallic lustre like plumbago. N o other plant presents this pheno* The calahuala of Caripe is the Polypodium crassifolium ; that of Peru, the use of which has been so much extended by Messrs. Ruiz and Pavon, comes from the Aspidium coriaceum, Willd.

(Tectaria calahuala, Cav.) In commerce the diaphoretic roots of the Polypodium crassifolium, and of the Acrostichum huascaro, are mixed with those of the calahuala or Aspidium coriaceum. † Aiphanes praga. ‡ Possibly a hemitelia of Robert Brown. The trunk alone is from 22 to 24 feet long. This and the Cyathea excelsa of the Mauritius, are the most majestic of all the fern-trees described by botanists. The total number of these gigantic cryptogamous plants amounts at present to 25 species, that of the palm-trees to 80. With the cyathea grow, on the mountain of Santa Maria, Rhexia juniperina, Chiococca racemosa, and Commelina spicata. § Meniscium arborescens, Aspidium caducum, A. rostratum, Cyathea villosa, and C. speciosa.

278

CRIES

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MONKEYS.

menon ; for the trunks of the dicotyledons, in spite of the heat of the climate, and the intensity of the light, are less burnt within the tropics than in the temperate zone. It may be said that the trunks of the ferns, which, like the monocotyledons, are enlarged by the remains of the petioles, decay from the circumference to the centre; and that, deprived of the cortical organs through which the elaborated juices descend to the roots, they are burnt more easily by the action of the oxygen of the atmosphere. I brought to Europe some powders with metallic lustre, taken from very old trunks of Meniscium and Aspidium.

In proportion as we descended the mountain of Santa Maria, we saw the arborescent ferns diminish, and the number of palm-trees increase. The beautiful large-winged butterflies (nymphales), which fly at a prodigious height, became more common. Everything denoted our approach to the coast, and to a zone in which the mean temperature of the day is from 28 to 30 degrees.

The Weather was cloudy, and led us to fear o n e o f those heavy rains, during which from 1 to 1 3 inch o f water s o m e times falls in a day. The sun at times illumined the tops of the trees; and, though sheltered from its rays, we felt an oppressive heat. Thunder rolled at a distance; the clouds seemed suspended on the top of the lofty mountains o f the Guacharo; and the plaintive howling of the araguatoes, which we had so often heard at Caripe, denoted the proximity of the storm. W e now for the first time had a near view of these howling apes. They are of the family of the alouates,* the different species o f which have long been confounded one with another. The small sapajous of America, which imitate in whistling the tones of the passeres, have the bono of the tongue thin and simple, but the apes of large size, as the alouates and marimondes,†have the tongue placed on a large bony drum. Their superior larynx has six pouches, in which the voice loses itself; and two of which, shaped like pigeons' nests, resemble the inferior larynx of birds. The air driven with force into the bony drum p r o duces that mournful sound which characterises the araguatoes. I sketched on the spot these organs, which are imper* Stentor, Geoffroy.

†Ateles, Geoffroy.

SPECIES OF APES.

279

fectly known to anatomists, and published the description of them on my return to Europe.

The araguato, which the Tamanac Indians call aravata* and the Maypures marave, resembles a young bear.† It is three feet long, reckoning from the top of the head (which is small and very pyramidal) to the beginning of the prehensile tail. Its fur is bushy, and of a reddish brown; the breast and belly are covered with fine hair, and not bare as in the mono Colorado, or alouate roux of Buffon, which we carefully examined in going from Carthagena to Santa Ee de Bogotá. The face of the araguato is of a blackish blue, and is covered with a fine and wrinkled skin: its beard is pretty long; and, notwithstanding the direction of the facial line, the* angle of which is only thirty degrees, the araguato has, in the expression of the countenance, as much resemblance to man as the marimonde (S. belzebuth, Bresson) and the capuchin of the Orinoco (S. chiropotes).

Among thousands of araguatoes which we observed in the provinces of Cumana, Caracas, and Guiana, we never saw any change in the reddish brown fur of the back and shoulders, whether we examined individuals or whole troops. It appeared to me in general, that variety of colour is less frequent among monkeys than naturalists suppose.

The araguato of Caripe is a new species of the genus Stentor, which I have above described. It differs equally from the ouarine (S. guariba) and the alouate roux (S. seniculus, old man of the woods). Its eye, voice, and gait, denote melancholy. I have seen young araguatoes brought up in Indian huts. They never play like the little sagoins, and their gravity was described with much simplicity by Lopez de Gomara, in the beginning of the sixteenth century.

“The Aranata de los Cumaneses,” says this author, “has * In the writings of the early Spanish missionaries, this monkey is described by the names of aranata and araguato.

In both names we easily discover the same root. The v has been transformed into g and n.

The name of arabata, which Gumilla gives to the howling apes of the Lower Orinoco, and which Geoffroy thinks belongs to the S. straminea of Great Partá, is the same Tamanac word aravata. This identity of names need not surprise us. The language of the Chayma Indians of Cumana is one of the numerous branches of the Tamanac language, and the latter is connected with the Caribbee language of the Lower Orinoco. † Alouate ourse (Simia ursina).

280

TROOP

OF

INDIANS.

the face of a man, the beard of a goat, and a grave demeanor (honrado gesto.)� Monkeys are more melancholy in proportion as they have more resemblance to man. Their sprightliness diminishes, as their intellectual faculties appear to increase.

W e stopped to observe some howling monkeys, which, to the number of thirty or forty, crossed the road, passing in a file from one tree to another over the horizontal and intersecting branches. While we were observing their movements, we saw a troop of Indians going towards the mountains of Caripe. They were without clothing, as the natives of this country generally are. The women, laden with rather heavy burdens, closed the march. The men were all armed; and even the youngest boys had bows and arrows.

They moved on in silence, with their eyes fixed on the ground. W e endeavoured to learn from them whether we were yet far from the .Mission o f Santa Cruz, where we intended passing the night. W e were overcome with fatigue, and suffered from thirst. The heat increased as the storm drew near, and we had not met with a single spring on the way. The words si, patre; no, patre; which the Indians continually repeated, led us to think they understood a little Spanish. In the eyes of a native every white man is a monk, a padre; for in the Missions the colour of the skin characterizes the monk, more than the colour of the garment. In vain we questioned them respecting the length of the way: they answered, as if by chance, si and no, without our being able to attach any precise sense to their replies.

This made us the more impatient, as their smiles and ges-

tures indicated their wish to direct u s ; and the forest seemed at every step to become; thicker and thicker. A t length wo separated from the Indians; our guides were able to follow us only at a distance, because the beasts of burden fell at every step in the ravines.

After journeying for several hours, continually descending on blocks of scattered rock, we found ourselves unexpectedly at the outlet o f the forest o f Santa Maria.

A savannah, the verdure o f which had been renewed by the

winter rains, stretched before us farther than the eye could reach. On the left we discovered a narrow valley, extending as far as the mountains of the Guacharo, and covered with a

NATIVE VILLAGE

281

thick forest. Looking downward, the eye rested on the tops of the trees, which, at eight hundred feet below the road, formed a carpet of verdure of a dark and uniform tint. The openings in the forest appeared like vast funnels, in which we could distinguish by their elegant forms and pinnated leaves, the Praga and Irasse palms. Put what rentiers this spot eminently picturesque, is the aspect of the Sierra del Guacharo. Its northern slope, in the direction of the gulf of Cariaco, is abrupt. It presents a wall of rock, an almost vertical profile, exceeding 3000 feet in height. The vegetation which covers this wall is so scanty, that the eye can follow the lines of the calcareous strata. The summit of the Sierra is flat, and it is only at its eastern extremity, that the majestic peak of the Guacharo rises like an inclined pyramid. Its form resembles that of the needles and horns * of the Alps.

The savannah we crossed to the Indian village of Santa Cruz is composed of several smooth plateaux, lying above each other like terraces. This geological phenomenon, which is repeated in every climate, seems to indicate a long abode of the waters in basins that have poured them from one to the other. The calcareous rock is no longer visible, but is covered with a thick layer of mould. The last time we sawit in the forest of Santa Maria it was slightly porous, and looked more like the limestone of Cumanacoa than that of Caripe. W e there found brown iron-ore disseminated in patches, and if we were not deceived in our observation, a Cornu-ammonis, which we could not succeed in our attempt to detach. It was seven inches indiameter. This fact is the more important, as in this part of America we have never seen ammonites. The Mission of Santa Cruz is situated in the midst of the plain. W e reached it towards the evening, suflering much from thirst, having travelled nearly eight hours without finding water. The thermometer kept at 20°; accordingly we were not more than 190 toises above the level of the sea.

W e passed the night in one of those ajupas called King's houses, which, as 1 have already said, serve as tambos or caravanserais to travellers. The rains prevented any observations of the stars; and the next day, the 23rd of Sep* The ShreckhĂśrner, the Finsteraarhom, &c.

282

MISSION OF CATUARO.

tember, we continued our descent towards the gulf of Cariaco. Beyond Santa Cruz a thick fores! again appears; and in it we found, under tufts of melastomas, a beautiful fern, with osmundia leaves, which forms a new genus of the order of polypodiaceous plants.* Having reached the mission of Catuaro, we were desirous of continuing our journey eastward by Santa Rosalia, Casanay, San Josef, Carupano, Rio Carives, and the Monta単a of Paria; but we learnt with great regret, that torrents of rain had rendered the roads impassable, and that we should run the risk of losing the plants we had already gathered.

A rich planter of cacao-trees was to accompany us from Santa Rosalia to the port of Carupano ; but when the time of departure approached, wo were informed that his affairs had called him to Cumana. W e resolved in consequence to embark at Cariaco, and to return directly by the gulf, instead of passing between the island of Margareta and the isthmus of Araya. The Mission of Catuaro is situated on a very wild spot. Trees of full growth still surround the church, and the tigers come by night to devour the poultry and swine belonging to the Indians. W e lodged at the dwelling of the priest, a monk of the congregation of the Observance, to whom the Capuchins had confided the Mission, because priests of their own community were wanting.

A t this Mission we met Don Alexandro Mexia, the corregidor of the district, an amiable and well-educated man.

H e gave us three Indians, who, armed with their machetes, were to precede us, and cut our way through the forest. In this country, so little frequented, the power of vegetation is such at the period of the great rains, that a man on horseback can with difficulty make his way through narrow paths, covered with lianas and intertwining branches.

To our great annoyance, the missionary of Catuaro insisted on conducting us to Cariaco; and we could not decline the proposal.

The movement for independence, which had nearly broken out at Caracas in 1798, had been preceded and followed by great agitation among the slaves at Coro, Maracaibo, and Caraico. At the last of these places a n unfortunate negro had been condemned to die, and our host, the vicar of Catuaro, was going thither to offer him spiritual comfort. During *

Polybotya.

DANGEROUS

DESCENT.

283

our journey we could not escape conversations, in which the m i s s i o n a r y pertinaciously insisted on the necessity of the slave-trade, on the innate wickedness of the blacks, and the benefit they derived from their state of slavery among the Christians! The mildness of Spanish legislation, compared with the Black Code of most other nations that have possessions in either of the Indies, cannot be denied. But such is the state of the negroes, that justice, far from efficaciously protecting them during their lives, cannot even punish acts of barbarity which cause their death.

The road we took across the forest of Catuaro resembled the descent of the mountain Santa Maria; here also, the most difficult and dangerous places have fanciful names.

W e walked as in a narrow furrow, scooped out by torrents, and filled with fine tenacious clay. The mules lowered their cruppers and slid down the steepest slopes. This descent is called Saca Manteca.* There is no danger in the descent, owing to the great address of the mules of this country. The clay, which renders the soil so slippery, is produced by the numerous layers of sandstone and schistose clay crossing the bluish grey alpine limestone. This last disappears as we draw nearer to Cariaco. When we reached the mountain of Meapira, we found it formed in great part of a white limestone, filled with fossil remains, and from the grains of quartz agglutinated in the mass, it appeared to belong to the great formation of the sea-coast breccias. W e descended this mountain on the strata of the rock, the section of which forms steps of unequal height. Farther on, going out of the forest, we reached the hill of Buenavista,†well deserving the name it hears; since it commands a view of the town of Cariaco, situated in the midst of a vast plain filled with plantations, huts, and scattered groups of cocoa-palms. To the west of Cariaco extends the wide gulf, which a wall of rock separates from the ocean: and towards the east are seen, like bluish clouds, the high mountains of Paria and Areo. This is one of the most extensive and magnificent prospects that can be enjoyed on the coast of New Andalusia. In the town of Cariaco we found a great * Or the Butter-Slope. Manteca in Spanish signifies butter, †Mountain of the Fine Prospect.

281

GEOLOGIC PHENOMENA.

part of the inhabitants suffering from intermittent fever; a disease which in autumn assumes a formidable character.

When we consider the extreme fertility of the surrounding plains, their moisture, and the mass of vegetation with which they are covered, we may easily conceive why, amidst so much decomposition of organic matter, the inhabitants do not enjoy that salubrity of air which characterizes the climate of Cumana.

The chain of calcareous mountains of the Brigantine and the Cocollar sends off a considerable branch to the north, which joins the primitive mountains of the coast. This branch bears the name of Sierra de Meapire; but towards the town of Cariaco it is called Cerro Grande de Curiaco.

Its mean height did not appear to be more than 150 or 200 toises. It was composed, where I could examine it, of the calcareous breccias of the sea-coast. Marly and calcareous beds alternate with other beds containing grains of quartz.

It is a very striking phenomenon for those who study the physical aspect of a country, to see a transverse ridge connect at right angles two parallel ridges, of which one, the more southern, is composed of secondary rocks, and the other, the more northern, of primitive rocks. The latter presents, nearly as far as the meridian of Carupano, only mica-slate; but to the east of this point, where it communicates by a transverse ridge (the Sierra de Meapire) with the limestone range, it contains lamellar gypsum, compact limestone, and other rocks of secondary formation. It might be supposed that the southern ridge has transferred these rocks to the northern chain.

When standing on the summit of the Cerro del Meapire, we see the mountain currents flow on one side to the gulf of Paria, and on the other to the gulf of Cariaco. East and west of the ridge there are low and marshy grounds, spreading out without interruption; and if it be admitted that both gulfs owe their origin to the sinking of the earth, and to rents caused by earthquakes, wo must suppose that the Cerro de Meapire has resisted the convulsive movements of the globe, and hindered the waters of the gulf of Paria from uniting with those of the gulf of Cariaco. But for this rocky dyke, the isthmus itself in all probability would nave had no existence; and from the castle of Araya as far as

CHANGES OF THE COAST.

285

Cape Paria, the whole mass of the mountains of the coast would have formed a narrow island, parallel to the island of Santa Margareta, and four times as long. Not only do the inspection of the ground, and considerations deduced from its relievo, confirm these opinions; but a mere glance of the configuration of the coasts, and a geological map of the country, would suggest the same ideas. It would appear that the island of Margareta has been heretofore attached to the coast-chain of Araya by the peninsula of Chacopata and the Caribbee islands, Lobo and Coche, in the same manner as this chain is still connected with that of the Cocollar and Caripe by the ridge of Meapire.

A t present we perceive that the humid plains which stretch cast and west of the ridge, and which are improperly called the valleys San Bonifacio and Cariaco, are enlarging by gaining on the sea. The waters are receding, and these changes of the shore are very remarkable, more particularly on the coast of Cumana. If the level of the soil seem to indicate that the two gulfs of Cariaco and Paria formerly occupied a much more considerable space, we cannot doubt that at present the land is progressively extending. Near Cumana, a battery, called La Boca, was built in 1791 on the very margin of the sea; in 1799 we saw it very far inland. A t the mouth of the Rio Neveri, near the Morro of Nueva Barcelona, the retreat of the waters is still more rapid. This local phenomenon is probably assignable to accumulations of sand, the progress of which has not yet been sufficiently examined. Descending the Sierra de Meapire, which forms the isthmus between the plains of San Bonifacio and Cariaco, wo find towards the east the great lake of Putacuao, which communicates with the river Areo, and is four or five leagues in diameter. The mountainous lands that surround this basin are known only to the natives.

There are found those great boa serpents known to the Chayma Indians by the name of guainas, and to which they fabulously attribute a sting under the tail. Descending the Sierra de Meapire to the west, wo find at first a hollow ground (tierra hueca) which, during the great earthquakes of 170(5, threw out asphaltum enveloped in viscous petroleum. Farther on, a numberless quantity of sulphureous

286

SULPHUREOUS SPRINGS.

thermal springs* are seen issuing from the soil; and at length we roach the borders of the lake of Campoma, the exhalations from which contribute to the insalubrity of the climate of Cariaco. The natives believe that the hollow is formed by the engulfing of the hot springs; and, judging from the sound heard under the hoofs of the horses, we must conclude that the subterranean cavities are continued from west to east nearly as far as Casanay, a length of three or four thousand toises. A little river, the Rio Azul, runs through these plains which are rent into crevices by earthquakes. These earthquakes have a particular centre of action, and seldom extend as far as Cumana. The waters of the Rio A z u l are cold and limpid; they rise on the western declivity of the mountain of Meapire, and it is believed that they are augmented by infiltrations from the lake Putacuao, situated on the other side of the chain. The little river, together with the sulphureous hot springs, fall into the Lag una de Campoma. This is a name given to a great lagoon, which is divided in dry weather into three basins situated north-west of the town of Cariaco, near the extremity of the gulf. Fetid exhalations arise continually from the stagnant water of this lagoon. The smell of sulphuretted hydrogen is mingled with that of putrid fishes and rotting plants.

Miasms are formed in the valley of Cariaco, as in the Campagna of Rome; but the hot climate of the tropics increases their deleterious energy. These miasms are probably ternary or quaternary combinations of azote, phosphorus, hydrogen, carbon, and sulphur.

The situation of the lagoon of Campoma renders the north-west wind, which blows frequently after sunset, very pernicious to the inhabitants of the little town of Cariaco.

Its influence can be the less doubted, as intermitting fevers are observed to degenerate into typhoid fevers, in proportion as we approach the lagoon, which is the principal focus of putrid miasms. Whole families of free negroes, who have small plantations on the northern coast of the gulf of Cariaco, languish in their hammocks from the beginning of the rainy season. These intermittent fevers assume a dan* El Llano de Aguas calientes, E . N . E . of Cariaco, at the distance of two leagues.

EPIDEMIC FEVERS.

287

gerous character, when, persons, debilitated by long labour and copious perspiration, expose themselves to the fine rains, which frequently fall as evening advances. Nevertheless, the men of colour, and particularly the Creole negroes, resist much better than any other race, the influence of the climate. Lemonade and infusions of Scoparia dulcis are given to the sick ; but the cuspare, which is the cinchona of Angostura, is seldom used.

It is generally observed, that in these epidemics of the town of Cariaco the mortality is less considerable than might be supposed. Intermitting fevers, when they attack the same individual during several successive years, enfeeble the constitution ; but this state of debility, so common on the unhealthy coasts, does not cause death. What is remarkable enough, is the belief which prevails here as in the Campagna of Rome, that the air has become progressively more vitiated in proportion as a greater number of acres have been cultivated.

The miasms exhaled from these plains have, however, nothing in common with those which arise from a forest when the trees are cut down, and the sun heats a thick layer of dead leaves. Near Cariaco the country is but thinly wooded. Can it be supposed that the mould, fresh stirred and moistened by rains, alters and vitiates the atmosphere more than the thick wood of plants which covers an uncultivated soil?

To local causes are joined other causes less problematic. The neighbouring shores of the sea are covered with mangroves, avicennias, and other shrubs with astringent bark. All the inhabitants of the tropics are aware of the noxious exhalations of these plants; and they dread them the more, as their roots and stocks arc not always under water, but alternately wetted and exposed to the heat of the sun.* The mangroves produce miasms, because they contain vegeto-animal matter combined with tannin. * The following is a list of the social plants that cover those sandy plains on the sea-side, and characterize the vegetation of Cumana and the gulf of Cariaco. Rhizophora mangle, Avicennia nitida, Gomphrena flava, G. brachiata, Sesuvium portulacastrum (vidrio), Talinum cuspidatum (vicho), T. cumanense, Portulacca pilosa (zargasso), P. lanuginosa, Illecebrum maritimum, Atriplex cristata, Heliotropium viride, H. latifolium, Verbena cuneata, Mollugo verticillata, Euphorbia maritima, Convolvulus cumanensis.

288

CACAO PLANTATIONS.

The town of Cariaco has been repeatedly sacked in former times by the Caribs. Its population has augmented rapidly since the provincial authorities, in spite of prohibitory orders from the court of Madrid, have often favoured the trade with foreign colonies. The population amounted, in 1800, to more than 6000 souls. The inhabitants are active in the cultivation of cotton, which is of a very fine quality.

The capsules of the cotton-tree, when separated from the woolly substance, are carefully burnt; as those husks if thrown into the river, and exposed to putrefaction, yield noxious exhalations. The culture of the cacao-tree has of late considerably diminished. This valuable tree bears only after eight or ten years. Its fruit keeps very badly in the warehouses, and becomes mouldy at the expiration of a year, notwithstanding all the precautions employed for drying it.

It is only in the interior of the province, to the east of the Sierra de Meapire, that new plantations of the cacaotree are seen. They become there the more productive, as the lands, newly cleared and surrounded by forests, are in contact with an atmosphere damp, stagnant, and loaded with mephitic exhalations. W e there see fathers of families, attached to the old habits of the colonists, slowly amass a little fortune for themselves and their children. Thirty thousand cacao-trees will secure competence to a family for a generation and a half. If the culture of cotton and coffee have led to the diminution of cacao in the province of Caracas and in the small valley of Cariaco, it must be admitted that this last branch of colonial industry has in general

increased

in the interior of the provinces of

New

Barcelona and Cumana. The causes of the progressive movement of the cacao-tree from west to cast may be easily conceived. The province of Caracas has been from a remote period cultivated: and, in the torrid zone, in proportion as a country has been cleared, it becomes drier and more exposed to the winds. These physical changes have been adverse to the propagation of cacao-trees, the plantations of which, diminishing in the province of Caracas, have accumulated eastward on a newly-cleared and virgin soil. The cacao of Cumana is infinitely superior to that o f Guayaquil. The best is produced in the valley of San Bonifacio; as the best cacao of New Barcelona, Car

THE

289

SOAP-BERRY

cas, and Guatimala, is that of Capiriqual, Uritucu, and Soconusco. Since the island of Trinidad has become an English colony, the whole of the eastern extremity of the province of Cumana, especially the coast of Paria, and the gulf of the same name, have changed their appearance.

Foreigners have settled there, and have introduced the cultivation of the coffee-tree, the cotton-tree, and the sugarcane of Otaheite. The population has greatly increased at Carupano, in the beautiful valley of Rio Caribe, at Guira, and at the new town of Punta di Piedra, built opposite Spanish Harbour, in the island of Trinidad. The soil is so fertile in the Golfo Triste, that maize yields two harvests in the year, and produces three hundred and eighty fold the quantity sown.

Early in the morning we embarked in a sort of narrow canoe, called a lancha, in hopes of crossing the gulf of Cariaco during the day. The motion of the waters resembles that of our great lakes, when they are agitated by the winds. From the embarcadero to Cumana the distance is only twelve nautical leagues. On quitting the little town of Cariaco, we proceeded westward along the river of Carenicuar, which, in a straight line like an artificial canal, runs through gardens and plantations of cotton-trees. On the banks of the river of Cariaco we saw the Indian women washing their linen with the fruit of the parapara (Sapindus saponaria, or soap-berry), an operation said to be very injurious to the linen. The bark of the fruit produces a strong lather; and the fruit is so elastic that if thrown on a stone it rebounds three or four times to the height of seven or eight feet. Being of a spherical form, it is employed in making rosaries.

After we embarked we had to contend against contrary winds. The rain fell in torrents, and the thunder rolled very near. Swarms of flamingoes, egrets, and cormorants filled the air, seeking the shore, whilst the alcatras, a large species of pelican, alone continued peaceably to fish in the middle of the gulf. The gulf of Cariaco is almost everywhere forty-five or fifty fathoms deep; but at its eastern extremity, near Curaguaca,along an extent of five leagues, the lead does not indicate more than three or four fathoms. Here is found the Baxo de la Cotua, a sand-bank, which at low-water appears like a small island. The canoes which carry provisions to Cumana VOL.

I.

U

290

THE COCOA-PALM.

sometimes ground on this bank; but always without danger, because the sea is never rough or heavy. W e crossed that part of the gulf where hot springs gush from the bottom of the sea. It was flood-tide, so that the change of temperature was not very perceptible : besides, our canoe drove too much towards the southern shore. It may be supposed that strata of water must be found of different temperatures, according to the greater or less depth, and according as the mingling of the hot waters with those of the gulf is accelerated by the winds and currents. The existence of these hot springs, which we were assured raise the temperature of the sea through an extent of ten or twelve thousand square toises, is a very remarkable phenomenon.* Proceeding from the promontory of Paria westward, by Irapa, Aguas Calientes, the gulf of Cariaco, the Brigantine, and the valley of Aragua, as far as the snowy mountains of Merida, a continued band of thermal waters is found in an extent of 150 leagues.

Adverse winds and rainy weather forced us to go on shore at Pericantral, a small farm on the south side of the gulf.

The whole of this coast, though covered with beautiful vegetation, is almost, wholly uncultivated, There are scarcely seven hundred inhabitants: and, excepting in the village of Mariguitar, we saw only plantations of cocoa-trees, which are the olives of the country. This palm occupies on both continents a zone, of which the mean temperature of the year is not below 20°.† It is, like the chamærops of the basin of the Mediterranean, a true palm-tree of the coast.

It prefers salt to fresh water; and flourishes less inland, where the air is not loaded with saline particles, than on the shore. When cocoa-trees are planted in Terra-Finna, or in the Missions of the Orinoco, at a distance from the sea, a considerable quantity of salt, sometimes as much as half a bushel, is thrown into the hole which receives the nut.

Among the plants cultivated by man, the sugar-cane, the plantain, the mammee-apple, and alligator-pear (Laurus per* In the island of Guadaloupe, there is a fountain of boiling water, which rushes out on the beach. Hot-water springs rise from the bottom of the sea in the gulf of Naples, and near the island of Palma, in the archipelago of the Canary Islands. † The cocoa-tree grows in the northern hemisphere from the equator to latitude 28°. Near the equator we find it from the plains to the height of 700 toises above the level of the sea.

COCOA-PLANTATIONS.

291

sea), alone have the property of the cocoa-tree; that of being watered equally well with fresh and salt water. This circumstance is favourable to their migrations ; and if the sugarcane of the sea-shore yield a syrup that is a little brackish, it is believed at the same time to be better fitted for the distillation of spirit than the juice produced from the canes

in inland situations.

The cocoa-tree, in the other parts of America, is in general cultivated around farm-houses, and the fruit is eaten; in the gulf of Cariaco, it forms extensive plantations. In a fertile and moist ground, the tree begins to bear fruit abundantly in the fourth year; but in dry soils it bears only at the expiration of ten years. The duration of the tree does not in general exceed eighty or a hundred years; and its mean height at that age is from seventy to eighty feet. This rapid growth is so much the more remarkable, as other palm-trees, for instance, the moriche* and the palm of Sombrero,† the longevity of which is very great, frequently do not attain a greater heightthan fourteen or eighteen feet in the space of sixty years. In the first thirty or forty years, a cocoa-tree of the gulf of Cariaco bears every lunation a cluster of ten or fourteen nuts, all of which, however, do not ripen. It may be reckoned that, on an average, a tree produces annually a hundred nuts, which yield eight flascos ‡ of oil. In Provence, an olive-tree thirty years old yields twenty pounds, or seven fiascos of oil, so that it produces something less than a cocoa-tree. There are in the gulf of Cariaco plantations (haciendas) of eight or nine thousand cocoa-trees. They resemble, in their picturesque appearance, those fine plantations of date-trees near Elche, in Murcia, where, over the superficies of one square league, there may be found upwards of 70,000 palms. The cocoatree bears fruit in abundance till it is thirty or forty years old; after that age the produce diminishes, and a trunk a hundred years old, without being altogether barren, yields very little.

In the town of Cumana there is prepared a great quantity of cocoa-nut oil, which is limpid, without smell, and very fit for burning. The trade in this oil is not less active than that on the coast of Africa for palm-oil, which is obtained from the * Mauritia

flexuosa.

†

Corypha tectorum.

‡ One flasco contains 70 or 80 cubic inches, Paris measure.

U2

292

FLOCKS OF VULTURES.

Elais guineensis, and is used as food. I have often seen canoes arrive at Cumana laden with 3000 cocoa-nuts.

W e did not quit the farm of Pericantral till after sunset.

The south coast of the gulf presents a most fertile aspect, while the northern coast is naked, dry, and rocky. In spite of this aridity, and the scarcity of rain, of which sometimes none falls for the space of fifteen months,* the peninsula of Araya, like the desert of Canound in India, produces patillas, or water-melons, weighing from fifty to seventy pounds. In the torrid zone, the vapours contained by the air form about nine-tenths of the quantity necessary to its saturation: and vegetation is maintained by the property which the leaves possess of attracting the water dissolved in the atmosphere.

At sunrise, we saw the Zamuro vultures,†in flocks of forty or fifty, perched on the cocoa-trees. These birds range themselves in files to roost together like fowls. They go to roost long before sunset, and do not awake till after the sun is above the horizon. This sluggishness seems as if it were shared in those climates by the trees with pinnate leaves.

The mimosas and the tamarinds close their leaves, in a clear and serene sky, twenty-five or thirty-five minutes before sunset, and unfold them in the morning when the solar disk has been visible for an equal space of time. As I noticed pretty regularly the rising and setting of the sun, for the purpose of observing the effect of the mirage, or of the terrestrial refractions, I was enabled to give continued attention to the phenomena of the sleep of plants. I found them the same in the steppes, where no irregularity of the ground interrupted the view of the horizon. It appears, that, accustomed during the day to an extreme brilliancy of light, the sensitive and other leguminous plants with thin and delicate leaves are * The rains appear to have been more frequent at the beginning of the 16th century. At any rate, the canon of Granada (Peter Martyr d'Anghiera), speaking in the year 1574, of the salt-works of Araya, or of Haraia, described in the fifth chapter of this work, mentions showers (cadentes imbres) as a very common phenomenon. The same author, who died in 1526, affirms that the Indians wrought the salt-works before the arrival of the Spaniards. They dried the salt in the form of bricks; and our writer even then discussed the geological question, whether the clayey soil of Haraia contained salt-springs, or whether it had been impregnated with salt by the periodical inundations of the ocean for ages. †Vultur aura.

MANNERS OF THE NATIVES.

293

affected in the evening by the smallest decline in the intensity of the sun’s rays; so that for vegetation, night begins there, as with us, before the total disappearance of the solar disk. But why, in a zone where there is scarcely any twilight, do not the first rays of the sun stimulate the leaves with the more strength, as the absence of l i g h t must have rendered them more susceptible ? Does the humidity deposited on the parenchyma by the cooling of the leaves, which is the effect of the nocturnal radiation, prevent the action of the first rays of the sun? In our climates, the leguminous plants with irritable leaves awake during the twilight of the morning, before the sun appears.

CHAPTER

IX.

Physical Constitution and Manners of the Chaymas.—Their Language.

—Filiation of the Nations which inhabit New Andalusia.—Pariagotos seen by Columbus.

I DID not wish to mingle with the narrative of our journey to the Missions of Caripe any general considerations on the different tribes of the indigenous inhabitants of New Andalusia; their manners, their languages, and their common origin. Having returned to the spot whence we set out, I shall now bring into one point of view these considerations which are so nearly connected with the history of the human race. As we advance into the interior of the country, these subjects will become even more interesting than the phenomena of the physical world. The north-east part of equinoctial America, Terra-Firma, and the banks of the Orinoco, resemble in respect to the numerous races of people who inhabit them, the defiles of the Caucasus, the mountains of Hindookho, at the northern extremity of Asia, beyond the Tungouses, and the Tartars settled at the mouth of the Lena.

The barbarism which prevails throughout these different regions is perhaps less owing to a primitive absence of all kind of civilization, than to the effects of long degradation; for most of the hordes which we designate under the name of savages, are probably the descendants of nations highly advanced in cultivation. How can we distinguish the prolonged infancy of the human race (if, indeed, it anywhere exists), from that state of moral degradation in which solitude, want, com-

291

AMOUNT OF NATIVE POPULATION.

pulsory misery, forced migration, or rigour of climate, obliterate even the traces of civilization? I f everything connected with the primitive state of man, and the first population of a continent, could from its nature belong to the domain of history, we might appeal to the traditions of India. According to the opinion frequently expressed in the laws of Menou and in the Ramajan, savages were regarded as tribes banished from civilized society, and driven into the forests. The word barbarian, which we have borrowed from the Greeks and Romans, was possibly merely the proper name of one of those rude hordes.

In the New World, at the begining of the conquest, the natives were collected into large societies only on the ridge of the Cordilleras and the coasts opposite to Asia.

The plains, covered with forests, and intersected by rivers; the immense savannahs, extending eastward, and bounding the horizon ; were inhabited by wandering hordes, separated by differences of language and manners, and scattered like the remnants of a vast wreck. In the absence of all other monuments, we may endeavour, from the analogy of languages, and the study of the physical constitution of man, to group the different tribes, to follow the traces of their distant emigrations, and to discover some of those family features by which the ancient unity of our species is manifested.

In the mountainous regions which we have just traversed,—in the two provinces of Cumana and New Barcelona, the natives, or primitivo inhabitants, still constitute about one-half of the scanty population. Their number may be reckoned at sixty thousand; of which twenty-four thousand inhabit New Andalusia. This number is very considerable, when compared with that of the hunting nations of North America; but it appears small, when wo consider those parts of New Spain in which agriculture has existed more than eight centuries: for instance, the Intendencia of Oaxaca, which includes the Mixteca and the Tzapoteca of the old Mexican empire. This Intendencia is onethird smaller than the two provinces of Cumana and Barcelona; yet it contains more than four hundred thousand natives of pure copper-coloured race. The Indians of Cumana do not all live within the Missions. Some are dispersed in the neighbourhood of the towns, along the coasts,

CLASSES OF INDIANS.

295

to which they are attracted by the fisheries, and some dwell in little farms on the plains or savannahs. The Missions of the Aragonese Capuchins which we visited, alone contain fifteen thousand Indians, almost all of the Chayma race.

The villages, however, are less populous there than in the province of Barcelona. Their average population is only between five or six hundred Indians; while more to the west, in the Missions of the Franciscans of Piritu, we find Indian villages containing two or three thousand inhabitants.

In computing at sixty thousand the number of natives in the provinces of Cumana and Barcelona, I include only those who inhabit the mainland, and not the Guayquerias of the island of Margareta, and the great mass of the Guaraunos, who have preserved their independence in the islands formed by the Delta of the Orinoco. The number of these is generally reckoned at six or eight thousand; hut this estimate appears to me to be exaggerated. Except a few families of Guaraunos who roam occasionally in the marshy grounds, called Los Morichales, and between the Ca単o de Manamo and the Bio Guarapiche, consequently, on the continent itself, there have not been for these thirty years, any Indian savages in New Andalusia.

I use with regret the word savage, because it implies a difference of cultivation between the reduced Indian, living in the Missions, and the free or independent Indian; a difference which is often belied by fact. In the forests of South America there are tribes of natives, peacefully united in villages, and who render obedience to chiefs.* They cultivate the plantain-tree, cassava, and cotton, on a tolerably extensive tract of ground, and they employ the cotton for weaving hammocks. These people arc scarcely more barbarous than the naked Indians of the Missions, who have been taught to make the sign of the cross. It is a common error in Europe, to look on all natives not reduced to a state of subjection, as wanderers and hunters. Agriculture was practised on the American continent long before the arrival of Europeans. It is still practised between the Orinoco and the river Amazon, in lands cleared amidst the forests, places to which the missionaries have never penetrated. I t would be to imbibe false ideas respecting the actual condition of the nations of South America, to consider as synonymous the * These chiefs bear the designations of Pecannati, Apoto, or Sibierne.

290

INDEPENDENT

TRIBES.

denominations o f ‘Christian,’ ‘reduced,’ and ‘ civdized ;’ and those of ‘ pagan,’ ‘ savage,’ and ‘ independent.’ The reduced Indian is often as little of a Christian as the independent Indian is of an idolater. Both, alike occupied by the wants of the moment, betray a marked indifference for religious sentiments, and a secret tendency to the worship of nature and her powers. This worship belongs to the earliest infancy of nations; it excludes idols, and recognises no other sacred places than grottoes, valleys, and woods.

If the independent Indians have nearly disappeared for a century past northward of the Orinoco and the Apure, that is, from the Snowy Mountains of Merida to the promontory of Paria, it must not thence be concluded, that there are fewer natives at present in those regions, than in the time of the bishop of Chiapa, Bartolomeo de las Casas. In my work on Mexico, I have shown that it is erroneous to regard as a general fact the destruction and diminution of the Indians in the Spanish colonies. There still exist more than six millions of the copper-coloured race, in both Americas; and, though numberless tribes and languages are either extinct, or confounded together, it is beyond a doubt that, within the tropics, in that part of the New World where civilization has penetrated only since the time o f C o l u m b u s ,

the number of natives has considerably increased. Two of the Carib villages in the Missions of Piritu or of Carony, contain more families than four or five of the settlements on the Orinoco. The state of society among the Caribbees who have preserved their independence, at the sources of the Essequibo and to the south of the mountains of Pacaraimo, sufficiently proves how much, even among that fine race of men, the population of the Missions exceeds in number that of the free and confederate Caribbees. Besides, the state of the savages of the torrid zone is not like that of the savages of the Missouri. The latter require a vast extent of country, because they live only by hunting; whilst the Indians of Spanish Guiana employ themselves in cultivating cassava and plantains. A very little ground suffices to supply them with food. They do not dread the approach of the whites, like the savages o f the United States; who, being progressively driven

back behind the Alleghany mountains, the Ohio, and the Mississippi, lose their means o f subsistence, in proportion as they find themselves reduced within narrow limits.

Under the

REDUCED INDIANS.

297

temperate zone, whether in the provincias internas of Mexico, or in Kentucky, the contact of European colonists has been fatal to the natives, because that contact is immediate.

These causes have no existence in the greater part of South America. Agriculture, within the tropics, does not require great extent of ground. The whites advance slowly.

The religious orders have founded their establishments between the domain of the colonists and the territory of the free Indians. The Missions may be considered as intermediary states. They have doubtless encroached on the liberty of the natives; but they have almost everywhere tended to the increase of population, which is incompatible with the restless life of the independent Indians. As the missionaries advance towards the forests, and gain on the natives, the white colonists in their turn seek to invade in the opposite direction the territory of the Missions. In this protracted struggle, the secular arm continually tends to withdraw the reduced Indian from the monastic hierarchy, and the missionaries are gradually superseded by vicars. The whites, and the castes of mixed blood, favoured by the corregidors, establish themselves among the Indians. The Missions become Spanish villages, and the natives lose even the rememmbrance of their natural language. Such is the progress of civilization from the coasts toward the interior; a slow progress, retarded by the passions of man, but nevertheless sun; and steady.

The provinces of New Andalusia and Barcelona, comunder the name of Govierno de Cumana. at present include in their population more than fourteen tribes.

Those in New Andalusia are the Chaymas, Guayqueries, Pariagotos, Quaquas, Aruacas, Caribbees, and Guaraunos; in the province of Barcelona, Cumanagotos, Balenkas, Caribbees, Piritus, Tomuzas, Topocuares, Chacopatas, and Guarivas.

Nine or ten of these fifteen tribes consider themselves to be of races entirely distinct.

The exact number of the Guaraunos, who make their huts on the trees at the mouth of the Orinoco, is unknown ; the Guayqueries, in the suburbs of Cumana and in the peninsula of Araya, amount to two thousand. Among the other Indian tribes, the Chaymas of the mountains of Caripe, the Caribs of the southern savannahs of New Barcelona, and the Cumanagotos in the Missions of Piritu, are most prehended

298

AFFINITY OF NATIVE RACES.

numerous. Some families of Guaraunos have been reduced and dwell in Missions on the left bank of the Orinoco, where the Delta begins. The languages of the Guaraunos and that of the Caribs, of the Cumanagotos and of the Chaymas, are the most general. They seem to belong to the same stock; and they exhibit in their grammatical forms those affinities, which, to use a comparison taken from languages more known, connect the Greek, the German, the Persian, and the Sanscrit.

Notwithstanding these affinities, we must consider the Chaymas, the Guaraunos, the Caribbees, the Quaquas, the Aruacas or Arrawaks, and the Cumanagotos, as different nations. I would not venture to affirm the same of the Guayqueries, the Pariagotos, the Piritus, the Tomuzas, and the Chacopatas. The Guayquerias themselves admit the analogy between their language and that of the Guaraunos. Both are a littoral race, like the Malays of the ancient continent.

With respect to the tribes who at present speak the Cumanagota, Caribbean, and Chayma tongues, it is difficult to decide on their first origin, and their relations with other nations formerly more powerful.

The historians of the conquest, as well as the ecclesiastics who have described the progress of the Missions, continually confound, like the ancients, geographical denominations with the names of races. They speak of Indians of Cumana and of the coast of Paria, as if the proximity of abode proved the identity of origin. They most commonly even give t o tribes the names of their chiefs, or of the mountains or valleys they inhabit. This circumstance, b y infinitely multiplying the number of tribes, gives an air of uncertainty to all that the monks relate respecting the heterogeneous elements of which the population o f their Missions are c o m p o s e d . How can we n o w decide, whether the Tomuza and Piritu be o f different races, when both speak the Cumanagoto language, which is the prevailing tongue in the western part o f the Govierno o f Cumana; as the Caribbean and the Chayma are in the southern and eastern parts. A great analogy of physical constitution increases the difficulty of these inquiries. In the new continent a surprising variety o f languages is observed among nations

o f the same origin, and

which

European

travellers scarcely distinguish by their features; while in

SHADES

OF

CHARACTER.

299

the old continent very different races of men, the Laplanders, the Finlanders, and the Esthonians, the Germanic nations and the Hindoos, the Persians and the Kurds, the Tartar and Mongol tribes, speak languages, the mechanism and roots of which present the greatest analogy.

The Indians of the American Missions are all agriculturists. Excepting those who inhabit the high mountains, they all cultivate the same plants; their huts are arranged in the same manner ; their days of labour, their work in the conuco of the community; their connexions with the missionaries and the magistrates chosen from among themselves, are all subject to uniform regulations. Nevertheless (and this fact is very remarkable in the history of nations), these analogous circumstances have not effaced the individual features, or the shades of character which distinguish the American tribes.

W e observe in the men of copper hue, a moral inflexibility, a stedfast perseverance in habits and manners, which, though modified in each tribe, characterise essentially the whole race. These peculiarities are found in every region; from the equator to Hudson's Bay on the one hand, and to the Straits of Magellan on the other. They are connected with the physical organization of the natives, but they are powerfully favoured by the monastic system.

There exist in the missions few villages in which the different families do not belong to different tribes and speak different languages. Societies composed of elements thus heterogeneous are difficult to govern.

In general, the monks have united whole nations, or great portions of the same nations, in villages situated near to each other.

The natives see only those of their own tribe; for the want of communication, and the isolated state of the people, are essential points in the policy of the missionaries. The reduced Chaymas, Caribs, and Tamanacs, retain their natural physiognomy, whilst they have preserved their languages.

If the individuality of man bo in some sort reflected in his idioms, these in their turn re-act on his ideas and sentiments. It is this intimate connection between language, character, and physical constitution, which maintains and perpetuates the diversity of nations; that unfading source of life and motion in the intellectual world.

The missionaries may have prohibited the Indians from following certain practices and observing certain ceremo-

300

INDIAN APATHY.

nies; they may have prevented them from painting their skin, from making incisions on their chins, noses and cheeks ; they may have destroyed among the great mass of the people superstitious ideas, mysteriously transmitted from father to son in certain families; but it has been easier for them to proscribe customs and efface remembrances, than to substitute new ideas in the place of the old ones.

The Indian of the Mission is secure of subsistence; and being released from continual struggles against hostile powers, from conflicts with the elements and man, he leads a more monotonous life, less active, and less fitted to inspire energy of mind, than the habits of the wild or independent Indian.

H e possesses that mildness of character which belongs to the love of repose; not that which arises from sensibility and the emotions of the soul. The sphere of his ideas is not enlarged, where, having no intercourse with the whites, he remains a stranger to those objects with which European civilization has enriched the New World. All his actions seem prompted by the wants of the moment. Taciturn, serious, and absorbed in himself, he assumes a sedate and mysterious air. When a person has resided but a short time in the Missions, and is but little familiarized with the aspect of the natives, he is led to mistake their indolence, and the torpid state of their faculties, for the expression of melancholy, and a meditative turn of mind.

I have dwelt on these features of the Indian character, and on the different modifications which that character exhibits under the government of the missionaries, with the view of rendering more intelligible the observations which form the subject of the present chapter. I shall begin by the nation of the Chaymas, of whom more than fifteen thousand inhabit the Missions above noticed. The Chayma nation, which Father Francisco of Pampeluna* began to reduce to subjection in the middle of the seventeenth century, has the Cumanagotos on the west, the Guaraunos on the east, and the Caribbees on the south. Their territory occupies a space along the elevated mountains of the Cocollar and the Guacharo, the banks of the Guarapiche, of * The name of this monk, celebrated for his intrepidity, is still revered in the province. He sowed the first seeds of civilization among these mountains. He had long been captain of a ship; and before he became a monk, was known by the name of Tiburtio Redin.

THE CHAYMAS.

301

the Rio Colorado, of the Areo, and of the CaĂąo de Caripe.

According to a statistical survey made with great care by the father prefect, there were, in the Missions of the Aragonese Capuchins of Cumana, nineteen Mission villages, of which the oldest was established in 1728, containing one thousand four hundred and sixty-five families, and six thousand four hundred and thirty-three persons: sixteen doctrina villages, of which the oldest dates from 1000, containing one thousand seven hundred and sixty-six families, and eight thousand one hundred and seventy persons. These Missions suffered greatly in 1681, 1697, and 1720, from the invasions of the Caribbees (then independent), who burnt whole villages. From 1730 to 173G, the population was diminished by the ravages of the small-pox, a disease always more fatal to the copper-coloured Indians than to the whites. Many of the Guaraunos, who had been assembled together, fled back again to their native marshes. Fourteen old Missions were deserted, and have not been rebuilt.

The Chaymas are in general short of stature and thickset. Their shoulders are extremely broad, and their chests flat. Their limbs are well rounded, and fleshy. Their colour is the same as that of the whole American race, from the cold table-lands of Quito and New Grenada to the burning plains of the Amazon. It is not changed by the varied influence of climate; it is connected with organic peculiarities which for ages past have been unalterably transmitted from generation to generation. If the uniform tint of the skin be redder and more coppery towards the north, it is, on the contrary, among the Chaymas, of a dull brown inclining to tawny. The denomination of copper-coloured men could never have originated in equinoctial America to designate the natives.

The expression of the countenance of the Chaymas, without being hard or stern, has something sedate and gloomy.

The forehead is small, and but little prominent, and in several languages of these countries, to express the beauty of a woman, they say that ‘ she is fat, and has a narrow forehead.’

The eyes of the

Chaymas are

black, deep-set,

and very elongated: but they are neither so obliquely placed, nor so small, as in the people of the Mongol race.

The corner of the eye is, however, raised up towards the

302

FACIAL CON FORMATION.

temple; the eyebrows are black, or dark brown, thin, and but little arched; the eyelids are edged with very long eyelashes, and the habit of casting them down, as if from lassitude, gives a soft expression to the women, and makes the eye thus veiled appear less than it really is. Though the Chaymas, and in general all the natives of South America and New Spain, resemble the Mongol race in the form of the eye, in their high cheek-bones, their straight and smooth hair, and the almost total absence of beard; yet they essentially differ from them in the form of the nose. In the South Americans this feature is rather long, prominent through its whole length, and broad at the nostrils, the openings of which are directed downward, as with all the nations of the Caucasian race. Their wide mouths, with lips but little protuberant though broad, have generally an expression of good nature. The passage from the nose to the mouth is marked in both sexes by two furrows, which run diverging from the nostrils towards the corners of the mouth. The chin is extremely short and round; and the jaws are remarkable for strength and width.

Though the Chaymas have line white; teeth, like all people who lead a very simple life, they are, however, not so strong as those of the Negroes. The habit of blackening the teeth, from the; age of fifteen, by the juices of certain herbs* and caustic lime, attracted the attention of the earliest travellers ; but the practice has now fallen quite into disuse. Such have been the migrations of the different tribes in these countries, particularly since the incursions of the Spaniards, who carried on the slave-trade, that it may be inferred the inhabitants of Paria visited by Christopher Columbus and by Ojeda, were not of the same race as the Chaymas. I doubt much whether the custom of blackening the teeth was originally suggested, as Gomara supposed, by absurd notions of beauty, or was practised with the view of preventing the * The early historians of the conquest state that the blackening of the teeth was effected by the leaves of a tree which the natives called hay, and which resembled the myrtle. Among nations very distant from each other, the pimento bears a similar name; among the Haytians aji or ahi; among the Maypures of the Orinoco, ai. Some stimulant and aromatic plants, which mostly belonging to the genus capsicum, were designated by the same name.

FAMILY RESEMBLANCES.

303

toothache. * This disorder is, however, almost unknown to the Indians ; and the whites suffer seldom from it in the Spanish colonies, at least in the warm regions, where the temperature is so uniform. They are more exposed to it on the back of the Cordilleras, at Santa-FĂŠ, and at Popayan.

The Chayinas, like almost all the native nations I have seen, have small, slender hands. Their feet are large, and their toes retain an extraordinary mobility. All the Chaymas have a sort of family look; and this resemblance, so often observed by travellers, is the more striking, as between the ages of twenty and fifty, difference of years is no way denoted by wrinkles of the skin, colour of the hair, or decrepitude of the body. On entering a hut, it is often difficult among adult persons to distinguish the lather from the son, and not to confound one generation with another.

I attribute this air of family resemblance to two different causes, the local situation of the Indian tribes, and their inferior degree of intellectual culture. Savage nations are subdivided into an infinity of tribes, which, bearing violent hatred one to another, form no intermarriages, even when their languages spring from the same root, and when only a small arm of a river, or a group of hills, separates their habitations. The less numerous the tribes, the more the intermarriages repeated for ages between the same families tend to fix a certain similarity of conformation, an organic type, which may be called national. This type is preserved under the system of the Missions, each Mission being formed by a single horde, and marriages being contracted only between the inhabitants of the same hamlet. Those ties of blood which unite almost a whole nation, are indicated in a simple * The tribes seen by the Spaniards on the coast of Paria, probably observed the practice of stimulating the organs of taste by caustic lime, as other races employed tobacco, the chimo, the leaves of the coca, or the betel.

This practice exists even in our days, but more towards the west, among the Guajiros, at the mouth of the Rio de la Hacha.

These Indians, still savage, carry small shells, calcined and powdered, in the husk of a fruit, which serves them as a vessel for various purposes, suspended to their girdle. The powder of the Guajiros is an urticle of commerce, as was anciently, according to Gomara, that of the Indians of Paria. The immoderate habit of smoking also makes the teeth yellow and blackens them ; but would it be just to conclude from this fact, that Europeans smoke because we think yellow teeth handsomer than white ?

304

IMMOBILITY OF FEATURES.

manner in the language of the Indians born in the Missions, or by those who, after having been taken from the woods, have learned Spanish. To designate the individuals who belong to the same tribe, they employ the expression mis parientes, my relations.

With these causes, common to all isolated classes, and the effects of which are observable among the Jews of Europe, among the different castes of India, and among mountain nations in general, are combined some other causes hitherto unnoticed. I have observed elsewhere, that it is intellectual culture which most contributes to diversify the features. Barbarous nations have a physiognomy of tribe or of horde, rather than individuality of look or features.

The savage and civilized man are like those animals of an individual species, some of which roam in the forest, while others, associated with mankind, share the benefits and evils which accompany civilization. Varieties of form and colour are frequent only in domestic animals. How great is the difference, with respect to mobility of features and variety of physiognomy, between dogs which have again returned to the savage state in the New World, and those whose slightest caprices are indulged in the houses of the opulent!

Both in men and animals the emotions of the soul are reflected in the features; and the countenance acquires the habit of mobility, in proportion as the emotions of the mind are frequent, varied, and durable. But the Indian of the Missions, being remote from all cultivation, influenced only by his physical wants, satisfying almost without difficulty his desires, in a favoured climate, drags on a dull, monotonous life. The greatest equality prevails among the members of the same community; and this uniformity, this sameness of situation, is pictured on the features of the Indians.

Under the system of the monks, violent passions, such as resentment and anger, agitate the native more rarely than when he lives in the forest. When man in a savage state yields to sudden and impetuous emotions, his physiognomy, till then calm and unruffled, changes instantly to convulsive contortions. His passion is transient in proportion to its violence. With the Indians of the Missions, as I have often observed on the Orinoco, anger is less violent, less earnest, but of longer duration. Besides, in every con-

DISLIKE OF CLOTHING.

305

dition of man, it is not the energetic or the transient outbreaks of the passions, which give expression to the features, it is rather that sensibility of the soul, which brings us continually into contact with the external world, multiplies our sufferings and our pleasures, and re-acts at once on the physiognomy, the manners, and the language. I f the variety and mobility of the features embellish the domain of animated nature, we must admit also, that both increase by civilization, without being solely produced by it. In the great family of nations, no other race unites these advantages in so high a degree as the Caucasian or European.

It is only in white men that the instantaneous penetration of the dermoidal system by the blood can produce that slight change of the colour of the skin which adds so powerful an expression to the emotions of the soul. “ Howcan those be trusted who know not how to blush?� says the European, in his dislike of the Negro and the Indian.

W e must also admit, that immobility of features is not peculiar to every race of men of dark complexion: it is much less marked in the African than in the natives of America.

The Chaymas, like all savage people who dwell in excessively hot regions, have an insuperable aversion to clothing.

The writers of the middle ages inform us, that in the north of Europe, articles of clothing distributed by missionaries, greatly contributed to the conversion of the pagan. In the torrid zone, on the contrary, the natives are ashamed (as they say) to be clothed; and flee to the woods, when they are compelled to cover themselves. Among the Chaymas, in spite of the remonstrances of the monks, men and women remain unclothed within their houses. When they go into the villages they put on a kind of tunic of cotton, which scarcely reaches to the knees.

The men’s tunics have sleeves; but women, and young boys to the age of ten or twelve, have the arms, shoulders, and upper part of the breast uncovered. The tunic is so shaped, that the forepart is joined to the back by two narrow bands, which cross the shoulders. When we met the natives, out of the boundaries of the Mission, we saw them, especially in rainy weather, stripped of their clothes, and holding their shirts rolled up under their arms. They preferred letting the ram fall on their bodies to wetting their clothes. The elder VOL. I. X

306

INDIAN DRESSES.

women hid themselves behind trees, and burst into loud fits of laughter when they saw us pass. The missionaries complain that in general the young girls are not more alive to feelings of decency than the men. Ferdinand Columbus* relates that, in 1498, his father found the women in the island of Trinidad without any clothing; while the men wore the guayuco, which is rather a narrow bandage than an apron.

A t the same period, on the coast of Paria, young girls were distinguished from married women, either, as Cardinal Bembo states, by being quite unclothed, or, according to Gomara, by the colour of the guayuco. This bandage, which is still in use among the Chaymas, and all the naked nations of the Orinoco, is only two or three inches broad, and is tied on both sides to a string which encircles the waist. Girls are often married at the age of twelve; and until they are nine years old, the missionaries allow them to go to church unclothed, that is to say, without a tunic. Among the Chaymas, as well as in all the Spanish Missions and the Indian villages, a pair of drawers a pair of shoes, or a hat, are objects of luxury unknown to the natives. An Indian servant, who had been with us during our journey to Caripe and the Orinoco, and whom I brought to France, was so much struck, on landing, when he saw the ground tilled by a peasant with his hat on, that he thought himself in a miserable country, where even the nobles (los mismos caballeros) followed the plough. The Chayma women are not handsome, according to the ideas we annex to beauty; yet the young girls have a look of softness and melancholy, contrasting agreeably with the expression of the mouth, which is somewhat harsh and wild.

They wear their hair plaited in two long tresses; they do not paint their skin; and wear no other ornaments than necklaces and bracelets made of shells, birds’ bones, and seeds. Both men and women are very muscular, but at the same time fleshy and plump. I saw no person who had any natural * Life of the Adelantado: Churchill’s Collection, 1723. This Life, written after the year 1537, from original notes in the handwriting of Christopher Columbus himself, is the most valuable record of the history of his discoveries. It exists only in the Italian and Spanish translations of Alphonso de Ulloa and Gonzales Barcia; for the original, carried to Venice in 1571 by the learned Fornari, has not been published, and is supposed to be lost. ‘Napione della Patria di Colombo,’—1804. ‘Cancellieri sopra Christ. Colombo,’—1809.

307

BODILY DEFORMITIES.

deformity; and I may say the same of thousands of Caribs, Muyscas, and Mexican and Peruvian Indians, whom we observed during the course of five years. Bodily deformities, and deviations from nature, are exceedingly rare among certain races of men, especially those who have the epidermis highly coloured; but I cannot believe that they depend solely on the progress of civilization, a luxurious life, or the corruption of morals. In Europe a deformed or very ugly girl marries, if she happen to have a fortune, and the children often inherit the deformity of the mother. In the savage state, which is a state of equality, no consideration can induce a man to unite himself to a deformed woman, or one who is very unhealthy. Such a woman, if she resist the accidents of a restless and troubled life, dies without children.

W e might be tempted to think, that savages all appear wellmade and vigorous, because feeble children die young for want of care, and only the strongest survive; but these causes cannot operate among the Indians of the Missions, whose manners are like those of our peasants, or among the Mexicans of Cholula and Tlascala, who enjoy wealth, transmitted to them by ancestors more civilized than themselves.

If, in every state of cultivation, the copper-coloured race manifests the same inflexibility, the same resistance to deviation from a primitive type, are we not forced to admit that this peculiarity belongs in great measure to hereditary organization, to that which constitutes the race ? With coppercoloured men, as with whites, luxury and effeminacy weaken the physical constitution, and heretofore deformities were more common at Cuzco and Tenochtitlan. Among the Mexicans of the present day, who are all labourers, leading the most simple lives, Montezuma would not have found those dwarfs and humpbacks whom Bernal Diaz saw waiting at his table when he dined.* The custom of marrying very young, according to the testimony of the monks, is no way detrimental to population. This precocious nubility depends on the race, and not on the influence of a climate excessively warm.

It is found on the north-west coast of America, among the Esquimaux, and in Asia, among the Kamtschatdales, and the; Koriaks, where girls often years old are often mothers. It may appear astonishing, that the time of gesta* Bernal Diaz, Hist. Verd. de la Nueva Espa単a,

1630,

x 2

308

PHYSICAL CONFORMATION.

tion—the duration of pregnancy, never altera in a state of health, in any race, or in any climate.

The Chaymas are almost without beard on the chin, like the Tungouses, and other nations of the Mongol race. They pluck out the few hairs which appear; but independently of that practice, most of the natives would be nearly beardless.* I say most of them, because there are tribes which, as they appear distinct from the others, are more worthy of fixing our attention. Such are, in North America, the Chippewas visited by Mackenzie, and the Yabipaees, near the Toltec ruins at Moqui, with bushy beards; in South America, the Patagonians and the Guaraunos. Among these last are some who have hairs on the breast. When the Chaymas, instead of extracting the little hair they have on the chin, attempt to shave themselves frequently, their beards grow.

I have seen this experiment tried with success by young Indians, who officiated at mass, and who anxiously wished to resemble the Capuchin fathers, their missionaries and masters. The great mass of the people, however, dislike the beard, no less than the Eastern nations hold it in reverence.

This antipathy is derived from the same source as the predilection for flat foreheads, which is evinced in so singular a manner in the statues of the Aztec heroes and divinities.

Nations attach the idea of beauty to everything which particularly characterizes their own physical conformation, their national physiognomy .† Hence it ensues that among a people to whom Nature has given very little beard, a narrow forehead, and a brownish red skin, every individual thinks himself handsome in proportion as his body is destitute of hair, his head flattened, and his skin besmeared with annatto, chica, or some other copper-red colour.

The Chaymas lead a life of singular uniformity. They go to rest very regularly at seven in the evening, and rise long before daylight, at half-past four in the morning.

Every * Physiologists would never have entertained any difference of opinion respecting the existence of the beard among the Americans, if they had considered what the first historians of the Conquest have said on this subject; for example, Pigafetta, in 1519, in his journal, preserved in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, and published (in 1800) by Amoretti; Benzoni, Hist, del Mundo Nuovo, 1 5 7 2 ; Bembo, Hist. Venet., 1557. † Thus, in their finest statues, the Greeks exaggerated the form of the forehead, by elevating beyond proportion the facial line.

INDIAN FEMALES.

309

Indian has a fire near his hammock. The women are so chilly, that I have seen them shiver at church when the centigrade thermometer was not below 18째. The huts of the Indians are extremely clean. Their hammocks, their reed mats, their pots for holding cassava and fermented maize, their bows and arrows, everything is arranged in the greatest order. Men and women bathe every day ; and being almost constantly unclothed, they are exempted, from that uncleanliness, of which the garments are the principal cause among the lower class of people in cold countries. Besides a house in the village, they have generally, in their conucos, near some spring, or at the entrance of some solitary valley, a small hut, covered with the leaves of the palm or plantain-tree.

Though they live less commodiously in the conuco, they love to retire thither as often as they can. The irresistible desire the Indians have to flee from society, and enter again on a nomade life, causes even young children sometimes to leave their parents, and wander four or five days in the forests, living on fruits, palm-cabbage, and roots. When travelling in the Missions, it is not uncommon to find whole villages almost deserted, because the inhabitants are in their gardens, or in the forests (al monte). Among civilized nations, the passion for hunting arises perhaps in part from the same causes: the charm of solitude, the innate desire of independence, the deep impression made by Nature, whenever man finds himself in contact with her in solitude.

The condition of the women among the Chaymas, like that in all semi-barbarous nations, is a state of privation and suffering. The hardest labour devolves on them. When we saw the Chaymas return in the evening from their gardens, the man carried nothing but the knife or hatchet (machete), with which he clears his way among the u n d e r w o o d ; whilst the woman, bending under a great load of plantains, carried one child in her arms, and sometimes two other children placed upon the load. Notwithstanding this inequality of condition, the wives of the Indians of South America appear to be in general happier than those of the savages of the North. Between the Alleghany mountains and the Mississippi, wherever the natives do not live childly on the produce of the chase, the women cultivate maize, beans, and gourds; and the men take no share in the labours of the field. I n

310

MENTAL INAPTITUDE.

the torrid zone, hunting tribes are not numerous, and in the Missions, the men work in the fields as well as the women.

Nothing can exceed the difficulty experienced by the Indians in learning Spanish, to which language they have an absolute aversion. Whilst living separate from the whites, they have no ambition to be called educated Indians, or, to borrow the phrase employed in the Missions, ‘ latinized Indians’ (Indies muy latinos). Not only among the Chaymas, but in all the very remote Missions which I afterwards visited, I observed that the Indians experience vast difficulty in arranging and expressing the most simple ideas in Spanish, even when they perfectly understand the meaning of the words and the turn of the phrases. When a European questions them concerning objects which have surrounded them from their cradles, they seem to manifest an imbecility exceeding that of infancy. The missionaries assert that this embarrassment is neither the effect of timidity nor of natural stupidity, but that it arises from the impediments they meet with in the structure of a language so different from their native tongue. In proportion as man is remote from cultivation, the greater is his mental inaptitude. It is not, therefore, surprising that the isolated Indians in the Missions should experience in the acquisition of the Spanish language, less facility than Indians who live among mestizoes, mulattoes, and whites, in the neighbourhood of towns. Nevertheless, I have often wondered at the volubility with which, at Caripe, the native alcalde, the governador, and the sergento mayor, will harangue for whole hours the Indiana assembled before the church; regulating the labours of the week, reprimanding the idle, or threatening the disobedient.

T h o s e chiefs who are also of the Chayina race, and who

transmit the orders of the missionary, speak all together in a loud voice, with marked emphasis, but almost without action.

Their features remain motionless; but their look is imperious and severe.

These same men, who manifest quickness of intellect, and who were tolerably well acquainted with the Spanish, were unable to connect their ideas, when, in our excursions in the country around the convent, we put questions to them through the intervention of the monks. They were made to

DIFFICULTY IN COUNTING.

311

affirm or deny whatever the monks pleased: and that wily civility, to which the least cultivated Indian is no stranger, induced them sometimes to give to their answers the turn that seemed to be suggested by our questions. Travellers cannot he enough on their guard against this officious assent, when they seek to confirm their own opinions by the testimony of the natives. To put an Indian alcalde to the proof, I asked him one day, whether he did not think the little river of Caripe, which issues from the cavern of the Guacharo, returned into it on the opposite side by some unknown entrance, after having ascended the slope of the mountain.

The Indian seemed gravely to reflect on the subject, and then answered, by way of supporting my hypothesis: “How else, if it were not so, would there always be water in the bed of the river at the mouth of the cavern?"

The Chaymas are very dull in comprehending anything relating to numerical facts. I never knew one of these people who might not have been made to say that he was either eighteen or sixty years of age. Mr. Marsden observed the same peculiarity in the Malays of Sumatra, though they have been civilized more than five centuries.

The Chayma language contains words which express pretty large numbers, yet few Indians know how to apply them; and having felt, from their intercourse with the missionaries, the necessity of so doing, the more intelligent among them count in Spanish, but apparently with great effort of mind, as far as thirty, or perhaps fifty. The same persons, however, cannot count in the Chayma language beyond five or six. It is natural that they should employ in preference the words of a language in which they have been taught the series of units and tens. Since learned Europeans have not disdained to study the structure of the idioms of America with the same care as they study those of the Semitic languages, and of the Greek and Latin, they no longer attribute to the imperfection of a language, what belongs to the rudeness of the nation. It is acknowledged, that almost everywhere the Indian idioms display greater richness, and more delicate gradations, than might be supposed from the uncultivated state of the people by whom they are spoken. I am far from placing the languages of the New World in the same rank with the finest languages of Asia

312

NATIVE LANGUAGES.

and Europe; but no one of these latter has a more neat, regular, and simple system of numeration, than the Quichua and the Aztec, which were spoken in the great empires of Cuzco and Anahuac. It is a mistake to suppose that those languages do not admit of counting beyond four, because in villages where they are spoken by the poor labourers of Peruvian and Mexican race, individuals are found, who cannot count beyond that number. The singular opinion, that so many American nations reckon only as far as five, ten, or twenty, has been propagated by travellers, who have not reflected, that, according to the genius of different idioms, men of all nations stop at groups of five, ten, or twenty units (that is, the number of the fingers of one hand, or of both hands, or of the fingers and toes together) ; and that six, thirteen, or twenty are differently expressed, by five-one, ten-three, and feet-ten.* Can it be said that the numbers of the Europeans do not extend beyond ten, because we stop after having formed a group of ten units ?

The construction of the languages of America is so opposite to that of the languages derived from the Latin, that the Jesuits, who had thoroughly examined everything that could contribute to extend their establishments, introduced among their neophytes, instead of the Spanish, some Indian tongues, remarkable for their regularity and copiousness, such as the Quichua and the Guarani. They endeavoured to substitute these languages for others which were poorer and more irregular in their syntax. This substitution was found easy: the Indians of the different tribes adopted it with docility, and thenceforward those American languages generalized became a ready medium of communication between the missionaries and the neophytes. It would bo a mistake to suppose, that the preference given to the language of the Incas over the Spanish tongue had no other aim than that of isolating the Missions, and withdrawing them from the influence of two rival powers, the bishops and civil governors. The Jesuits had other motives, independently of their policy, for wishing to generalize certain Indian tongues. They found in those languages a common * Savages, to express great numbers with more facility, are in the habit of forming groups of five, ten, or twenty grains of maize, according as they reckon in their language by fives, tens, or twenties.

ANALOGY OF DIALECTS.

313

tie, easy to be established between the numerous hordes which had remained hostile to each other, and had been kept asunder by diversity of idioms ; for, in uncultivated countries, after the lapse of several ages, dialects often assume the form, or at least the appearance, of mothertongues.

When it is said that a Dane learns, the German, and a Spaniard the Italian or the Latin, more easily than they learn any other language, it is at first thought that this facility results from the identity of a great number of roots, common to all the Germanic tongues, or to those of Latin Europe; it is not considered, that, with this resemblance of sounds, there is another resemblance, which acts more powerfully on nations of a common origin. Language is not the result of an arbitrary convention. The mechanism of inflections, the grammatical constructions, the possibility of inversions, all are the offspring of our own minds, of our individual organization. There is in man an instinctive and regulating principle, differently modified among nations not of the same race. A climate more or less severe, a residence in the defiles of mountains, or on the sea-coasts, or different habits of life, may alter the pronunciation, render the identity of the roots obscure, and multiply the number; but all these causes do not affect that which constitutes the structure and mechanism of languages. The influence of climate, and of external circumstances, vanishes before the influence which depends on the race, on the hereditary and individual dispositions of men.

In America (and this result of recent researches * is extremely important with respect to the history of our species) from the country of the Esquimaux to the banks of the Orinoco, and again from these torrid regions to the frozen climate of the Straits of Magellan, mother-tongues, entirely different in their roots, have, if we may use the expression, the same physiognomy. Striking analogies of grammatical construction are acknowledged, not only in the more perfect languages, as in that of the Incas, the Aymara, the Guarauno, the Mexican, and the Cora, but also in languages extremely rude. Idioms, the roots of which do not resemble each other more than the * See Vater's Mithridates.

314

THE

GREENLAND

LANGUAGE.

roots of the Sclavonic and the Biscayan, have those resemblances of internal mechanisin which are found in the Sanscrit, the Persian, the Greek, and the German languages.

Almost everywhere in the New World we recognize a multiplicity of forms and tenses in the verb,* an ingenious method of indicating beforehand, either by inflexion of the personal pronouns, which form the terminations of the verb, or by an intercalated suffix, the nature and the relation of its object and its subject, and of distinguishing whether the object be animate or inanimate, of the masculine or the feminine gender, simple or in complex number. It is on account of this general analogy of structure,—it is because American languages which have no words in common (for instance, the

Mexican

and the

Quichua),

resemble

each

other by their organization, and form complete contrasts to the languages o f Latin Europe, that the Indians of the Missions familiarize themselves more easily with an American idiom than with the Spanish. In the forests of the Orinoco I have seen the rudest Indians speak two or three tongues. Savages of different nations often communicate their ideas to each other by an idiom not their o w n .

If the system of the Jesuits had been followed, languages, which already occupy a vast extent of country, would have become almost general. In Terra Firma and on the Orinoco, the Caribbean and the Tamanac alone would now be spoken ; * In the Greenland language, for example, the multiplicity of the pronouns governed by the verb produces twenty-seven forms for every tense of the Indicative mood. It is surprising to find, among nations now ranking in the lowest degree of civilization, this desire of graduating the relations of time, this superabundance of modifications introduced into the verb, to characterise the object. Matarpa, he takes it away : mattarpet, thou takest it away : mattarpatit, he takes it away from thee: mattarpagit, I take away from thee. And in the preterite of the same verb, mattara, he has taken it away : mattaratit, he has taken it away from thee. This example from the Greenland language shows how the governed and the personal pronouns form one compound, in the American languages, with the root of the verb.

These slight differences in the form of the verb, according to the nature of the pronouns governed by it, is found in the Old World only in the Biscayan and Congo languages (Vater, Mithridates. William von Humboldt, On the Basque Language).

Strange conformity in the structure of languages on spots so distant, and among three races of men so different,—the white Catalonians, the black Congos, and the copper-coloured Americans!

CONFUSION OF IDIOMS.

315

and in the south and south-west, the Quichua, the Guarano, the Omagua, and the Araucan. By appropriating to themselves these languages, the grammatical forms of which are very regular, and almost as fixed as those of the Greek and Sanscrit, the missionaries would place themselves in more intimate connection with the natives whom they govern.

The numberless difficulties which occur in the system of a Mission consisting of Indians of ten or a dozen different nations would disappear with the confusion of idioms. Those which are little diffused would become dead languages; but the Indian, in preserving an American idiom, would retain his individuality—his national character. Thus by peaceful means might be effected what the Incus began to establish by force of arms.

How indeed can we be surprised at the little progress made by the Chaymas. the Caribbees, the Salives, or the Otomacs, in the knowledge of the Spanish language, when we recollect that one white man, one single missionary, finds himself alone amidst five or six hundred Indians ? and that it is difficult for him to establish among them a governador, an alcalde, or fiscal, who may serve him as an interpreter?

If, instead of the missionary system, some other means of civilization were substituted, if, instead of keeping the whites at a distance, they could be mingled with the natives recently united in villages, the American idioms would soon be superseded by the languages of Europe, and the natives would receive in those languages the great mass of new ideas winch are the fruit of civilization. Then the introduction of general tongues, such as that of the Incas, or the Guanines, without doubt would become useless. But after having lived so long in the Missions of South America, after having so closely observed the advantages and the abuses of the system of the missionaries, I may be permitted to doubt whether that system could be easily abandoned, though it is doubtless very capable of being improved, and rendered more conformable with our ideas of civil liberty. To this it may be answered, that the Romans* succeeded in rapidly * For the reason of this rapid introduction of Latin among the Gauls, I believe we must look into the character of the natives and the state of their civilization, and not into the structure of their language. The brown-haired Celtic nations were certainly different from the race of

316

ANALOGY OF SOUNDS.

introducing their language with their sovereignty into the country of the Gauls, into Bœtica, and into the province of Africa. But the natives of these countries were not savages ; —they inhabited towns; they were acquainted with the use of money; and they possessed institutions denoting a tolerably advanced state of cultivation. The allurement of commerce, and a long abode of the Roman legions, had promoted intercourse between them and their conquerors. W e see, on the contrary, that the introduction of the languages of the mother-countries was met by obstacles almost innumerable, wherever Carthaginian, Greek, or Roman colonies were established on coasts entirely barbarous. In every age, and in every climate, the first impulse of the savage is to shun the civilized man.

The language of the Chayma Indians was less agreeable to my ear than the Caribbee, the Salive, and other languages of the Orinoco. It has fewer sonorous terminations in accented vowels. W e are struck with the frequent repetition of the syllables guaz, ez, puec, and pur. These terminations are derived in part from the inflexion of the verb to be, and from certain prepositions, which are added at the ends of words, and which, according to the genius of the American idioms, are incorporated with them. It would be wrong to attribute; this harshness of sound to the abode of the Chaymas in the mountains. They are strangers to that temprate climate. They have been led thither by the missionaries; and it is well

known that, like all the inhabitants of warm

regions, they at first dreaded what they called the cold of Caripe. I employed myself, with M. Bonpland, during our abode at the hospital of the Capuchins, in forming a small catalogue of Chayma words. I am aware that languages are much more strongly characterised by their structure and

grammatical forms than by the analogy of their sounds and of their roots; and that the analogy of sounds is sometimes the light-haired Germanic nations; and though the Druid caste recalls to our minds one of the institutions of the Ganges, this does not demonstrate that the idiom of the Celts belongs, like that of the nations of Odin, to a branch of the Indo-Pelasgic languages. From analogy of structure and of roots, the Latin ought to have penetrated more easily on the other side of the Danube, than into Gaul; but an uncultivated state, joined to great moral inflexibility, probably opposed its introduction among the Germanic nations.

PRINCIPAL DIALECTS.

317

so disguised in different dialects of the same tongue, as not to be recognizable; for the tribes into which a nation is divided, often designate the same objects by words altogether heterogeneous. Hence it follows that we readily fall into mistakes, if, neglecting the study of the inflexions, and consulting only the roots (for instance, in the words which designate the moon, sky, water, and earth), we decide on the absolute difference of two idioms from the mere want of resemblance in sounds. But, while aware of this source of error, travellers would do well to continue to collect such materials as may be within their reach. I f they do not make known

the internal structure, and general arrange-

ment of the edifice, they may point out some important parts.

The three languages now most used in the provinces of Cumana and Barcelona, are the Chayma, the Cumanagota, and the Caribbee. They have always been regarded in these countries as different idioms, and a dictionary of each has been written for the use of the Missions, by Fathers Tauste, Ruiz-bianco, and Breton. The Vocabulario y Arte de la Lengua de los Indios Chaymas has become extremely scarce.

The few American grammars, printed for the most part in the seventeenth century, passed into the Missions, and have been lost in the forests. The dampness of the air and the voracity of insects* render the preservation of books almost impossible in those regions: they are destroyed in a short space of time, notwithstanding every precaution that may be employed. I had much difficulty to collect in the Missions, and in the convents, those grammars of American languages, which, on my return to Europe, I placed in the hands of Severin Vater, professor and librarian at the university of KĂśnigsberg. They furnished him with useful materials for his great work on the idioms of the New World. I omitted, at the time, to transcribe from my journal, and communicate to that learned gentleman, what I had collected in the Chayma tongue. Since neither Father Gili, nor the Abbe Hervas, has mentioned this language, I shall here explain succinctly the result of my researches.

On the right bank of the Orinoco, south-east of the Mis* The termites, so well known in Spanish America under the name of comegen, or ‘ devourer,’ is one of these destructive insects.

318

THE CHAYMA LANGUAGE.

sion of Encaramada, and at the distance of more than a hundred leagues from the Chaymas, live the Tamanacs (Tamanacu), whose language is divided into several dialects.

This nation, formerly very powerful, is separated from the mountains of Caripe by the Orinoco, by the vast steppes of Caracas and o f Cumana; and by a barrier far more diffcult to surmount, the nations of Caribbean origin. But notwithstanding distance, and the numerous obstacles in the way of intercourse, the language of the Chayma Indians is a branch of the Tamanac tongue. The oldest missionaries of Caripe are ignorant of this curious fact, because the Capuchins of Aragon seldom visit the southern banks of the Orinoco, and scarcely know of the existence of the Tamanacs. I recognized the analogy between the idiom of this nation, and that of the Chayma Indians long after my return to Europe, in comparing the materials which I had collected with the sketch of a grammar published in Italy by an old missionary of the Orinoco. Without knowing the Chaymas, the AbbĂŠ Gili conjectured that the language of the inhabitants of Paria must have some relation to the Tamanac* I will prove this connection by two means which serve to show the analogy of idioms; viz., the grammatical construction, and the identity o f words and roots.

T h e follow-

ing are the personal pronouns of the Chaymas, which are * Vater has also advanced some well-founded conjectures on the connexion between the Tamanac and Caribbean tongues and those spoken on the north-east coast of South America.

I may acquaint the reader, that I have written the words of the American languages according to the Spanish orthography, so that the u should be pronounced 00, the ch like ch in English, &c. Having during a great number of years spoken no other language than the Castilian, I marked down the sounds according to the orthography of that language, and now I am afraid of changing the value of these signs, by substituting others no less imperfect.

It is a barbarous practice, to express, like the greater part of the nations of Europe, the most simple and distinct sounds by many vowels, or many united consonants, while they might, be indicated by letters equally simple.

What a chaos is exhibited by the vocabularies written according to English, German, French, or Spanish notations! A new essay, which the illustrious author of the travels in Egypt, M . Volney, is about to publish on the analysis of sounds found in different nations, and on the notation of those sounds according to a uniform system, will lead to great progress in the study of languages.

IDENTITY OF WORDS.

319

at the same time possessive pronouns; u-re, I, m e ; eu-re, thou, thee; teu-re, he, him. In the Tamanac, u-re, I ; amare or anja, thou; iteu-ja, he. The radical of the first and of third person is in the Chayma u and teu.* The same roots are found in the Tamanac.

CHAYMA. Ure, I. Tuna, water.

Conopo, rain.† Poturu, to know.

Apoto, fire.

Nuna, the moon, a month.

Je, a tree.

Ata, a house.

Euya, to you.

Toya, to you.

Guane, honey.

Nacaramayre, he has said it.

Piache, a physician, a sorcerer.

Tibin, one.

Aco, two.

Oroa, two.

Pun, flesh.

Pra, no (negation).

TAMANAC. Ure. Tuna.

Canepo.

Puturo.

Uapto (in Caribbean uato).

Nuna.‡ Jeje.

Aute.

Auya.

Iteuya.

Uane.

Nacaramai.

Psiache.

Obin (in Jaoi, Tewin).

Oco (in Caribbean, Occo).

Orua (in Caribbean, Oroa).

Punu.

Pra.

The verb to be, is expressed in Chayma by az. On adding to the verb the personal pronoun I (u from u-re), a g is placed, for the sake of euphony, before the u, as in guaz,‘I am,’ properly g-u-az. A s the first person is known by an u, * W e must not wonder at those roots which reduce themselves to a single vowel.

In a language of the Old Continent, the structure of which is so artificially complicated, (the Biscayan,) the family name Ugarte (between the waters) contains the u of ura (water) and arte between. The g is added for the sake of euphony. † The same word, conopo, signifies rain and year.

The years are counted by the number of winters, or rainy seasons. They say in Chayma, as in Sanscrit, ‘ so many rains,’ meaning so many years.

In the Basque language, the word urtea, year, is derived from, urten, to bring forth leaves in spring. ‡ In the Tamanac and Caribbean languages, Nono signifies the earth, Nuna the moon; as in the Chayma.

This affinity appears to me very curious ; and the Indians of the Rio Caura say, that the moon is ‘ another earth.’

Among savage nations, amidst so many confused ideas, we find certain reminiscences well worthy of attention.

Among the Greenlanders Nuna signifies the earth, and Anoningat the moon.

320

GRAMMATICAL CONSTRUCTION.

the second is designated by an m, the third by an i; maz, ‘thou art;’ muerepuec araquapemaz? ‘why art thou sad?’ properly ‘ what for sad thou art;’ punpucc topuchemaz, ‘ thou art fat in body,’ properly ‘flesh (pun) for (puec) fat (topuche) thou art (maz).’ The possessive pronouns precede the substantive; upatag, ‘ in my house,’ properly ‘ my house in.’ All the prepositions and the negation pra are incorporated at the end, as in the Tamanac.

They say in Chayma, ipuec, ‘ with him,’ properly ‘ him with;’ euya, ‘ to thee,’ or ‘ thee to;’ epuec charpe guaz, ‘ I am gay with thee,’ properly ‘ thee with gay I am;’ ucarepra, ‘ not as I,’ properly ‘ I as not;’ quenpotupra quoguaz, ‘ I do not know him,’ properly ‘ him knowing not I am;’ quenepra quoguaz, ‘ I nave not seen him,’ properly ‘him seeing not I am.’ In the Tamanac tongue, acurivane means ‘ beautiful,’ and acurivanepra, ‘ ugly—not beautiful;’ outapra, ‘ there is no fish,’ properly ‘ fish none;’ uteripipra, ‘ I will not go,’ properly ‘I to go will not,’ composed of uteri* ‘to go,’ ipiri, ‘to choose,’ and pra,‘ not.’ Among the Caribbees, whose language also bears some relation to the Tamanac, though infinitely less than the Chayma, the negation is expressed by an m placed before the verb: amoyenlengati, ‘ it is very cold;’ and mamoyenlengati, ‘it is not very cold.’ In an analogous manner, the particle mna added to the Tamanac verb, not at the end, but by intercalation, gives it a negative sense, as taro, ‘ to say,’ taromnar, ‘ not to say.’

The verb to be, very irregular in all languages, is az or ats in Chayma; and uochiri (in composition uac, uatscha) in Tamanac. It serves not only to form the Passive, but it is added also, as by agglutination, to the radical of attributive verbs, in a number of tenses.†. These agglu* In Chayma: utechire, ‘ I will go also,’ properly I (u) to go (the radical ute, or, because of the preceding vowel, te) also (chere, or ere, or ire).

In ntechire we find the Tamanac verb ‘ to go,’ uteri, of which ute is also the radical, and ri the termination of the Infinitive.

In order to show that in Chayma chere or ere indicates the adverb ‘ also,’ I shall cite from the fragment of a vocabulary in my possession, u-chere, ‘ I also ;’ nacaramayre, ‘ he said so also ;’ guarzazere, ‘ I carriedalso;’ charechere, ‘ to carry also.’ In the Tamanac, as in the Chayma, chareri signifies ‘ to carry.’ † The present in the Tamanac, jarer-bac-ure, appears to me nothing else than the verb bac, or uac (from uacschiri, ‘ to b e ’ ) , added to the

GRAMMATICAL

321

CONSTRUCTION.

filiations remind us of the employment in the Sanscrit of the auxiliary verbs as and bhu (asti and bhavati*); the Latin, of es and fu, or f u s ; † the Biscayan, of izan, ucan, and eguin. There are certain points in which idioms the most dissimilar concur one with another. That which is common in the intellectual organization of man is reflected in the general structure of language; and every idiom, however barbarous it may appear, discloses a regulating principle which has presided at its formation.

The plural, in Tamanac, is indicated in seven different ways, according to the termination of the substantive, or according as it. designates an animate or inanimate object.‡ In Chayma the plural is formed as in Caribbee, in on; teure, ‘himself,’ teurecon, ‘themselves;’ tanorocon, ‘those here;’ montaonocon, ‘those below,’ supposing that the interlocutor is speaking of a place where he was himself present; miyonocon, ‘those below,’ supposing he speaks of a place where he was not present. The Chaymas have also the Castilian adverbs aquί and allá, shades of difference which can be expressed only by periphrasis, in the idioms of Germanic and Latin origin.

Some Indians, who were acq uainted with Spanish, assured us, that zis signified not only the sun, but also the Deity.

This appeared to me the more extraordinary, as among all other American nations we find distinct words for God and the sun.

The Carib does not confound Tamoussicabo, ‘ the Ancient of Heaven,’ with veyou, ‘ the sun.’ Even the Peruvian, though a worshipper of the sun, raises his mind to the idea of a Being who regulates the movements of the stars. The sun, in the language of the Incas, bears radical ‘to carry,’ jare (in the infinitive jareri), the result o f which is ‘ carrying to be I.’ * In the branch o f the Germanic languages we find bhu under the forms bim, bist; as, in the fo rms vas, vast, vesum (Bo pp, p. 138). † Hence fu-ero; amav-issem; amav-eram; pos-sum (pot-sum). ‡ Tamanacu, ‘ a Tamanac’ (plur. Tamanakemi) : Pongheme, a Spa­ niard (pro perly ‘ a man clo thed ’) ; Pongamo, Spaniards, o r ‘ men clothed.’

The plural in cne characterizes inanimate o bjects : fo r example, cene, ‘a thing;’ cenecne, ‘things:’ jeje, ‘a tree;’ jejecne, ‘trees.’

VOL.

I.

V

322

THE ALPHABET.

the namo of inti,* nearly the same as in Sanscrit; while God is called Vinay Huayna, ‘ the eternally young.’ † The arrangement of words in the Chayma is similar to that found in all the languages of both continents, which have preserved a certain primitive character. The object is placed before the verb, the verb before the personal pronoun. The object, on which the attention should be principally fixed, precedes all the modifications of that object.

The American would say, ‘liberty complete love we,’ instead of ‘ we love complete liberty;’ ‘ Thee with happy am I,‘ instead of ‘ I am happy with thee.’ There is something direct, firm, demonstrative, in these turns, the simplicity of which is augmented by the absence of the article. May it be presumed that, with advancing civilization, these nations, left to themselves, would have gradually changed the arrangement of their phrases ? W e are led to adopt this idea, when we reflect on the changes which the syntax of the Romans has undergone in the precise, clear, but somewhat timid languages of Latin Europe.

The Chayma, like the Tamanac and most of the American languages, is entirely destitute of certain letters, as f, b, and d. N o word begins with an l. The same observation has been made on the Mexican tongue, though it is overcharged with the syllables tli, tla, and itl, at the end or in the middle of words. The Chaymas substitute r for l; a substitution that arises from a defect of pronunciation common in every z o n e . ‡Thus, the Caribbees of the Orinoco have been transformed into Galibi in French Guiana by confounding r with l, and softening the c. The Tamanac nas made choraro and solalo of the Spanish word soldado (soldier).

The disappearance of the f and b in so many American idioms arises out of that intimate connection between certain sounds, which is manifested in all lan* In the Quichua, or language of the Incas, the sun is inti; love, munay; great, veypul; in Sanscrit, the sun, indre; love, manya ; great, vipulo. (Vater, Mithridates, tom. iii. p. 333.) These are the only examples of analogy of sound, that have yet been noticed. The grammatical character of the two languages is totally different. † Vinay, ‘ always,’ or ‘ eternal ;’ huayna, ’ in the flower of age.’ ‡ For example, the substitution of r for l, characterizes the Bashmuric dialect of the Coptic language.

323

AFFINITY OF LANGUAGES.

guages of the same orig in. The letters f, v, b, and p, are substituted one for the other; for instance, in the Per­ sian, peder, father (pater); burader,* brother (frater); behar, spring (ver); in Greek, Φóρτoν (forton), a burthen; πoûs (pous) a foot, (fuss, Germ.). In the same manner, with the Americans, f and b become p; and d becomes t.

The Chayma pronounces patre, Tios, Atani, aracapucha, for padre, Dios, Adan, and arcabuz (harquebuss).

In spite of the relations just pointed out, I do not think that the Chayma lang uag e can be reg arded as a dialect of the Tamanac, as the Maitano, Cuchivero, and Crataima undoubtedly are. There are many essential differences; and between the two lang uag es there appears to me to exist merely the same connection as is found in the German, the Swedish, and the Eng lish. They belong to the same subdivision of the g reat family of the Tamanac, Caribbean, and Arowak tong ues. As there exists no absolute measure of resemblance between idioms, the deg rees of parentag e can be indicated only by examples taken from known tongues. We consider those as being of the same family, which bear affinity one to the other, as the Greek, the German, the Persian, and the Sanscrit.

Some philolog ists have imag ined, on comparing lang uag es, that they may all be divided into two classes, of which some, comparatively perfect in their org anization, easy and rapid in their movements, indicate an interior development by inflexion; while others, more rude and less susceptible of improvement, present only a crude assemblag e of small forms or ag g lutinated particles, each preserving the phy­ siognomy peculiar to itself, when it is separately employed.

This very ing enious view would be deficient in accuracy were it supposed that there exist polysyllabic idioms with­ out any inflexion, or that those which are org anically deve­ loped as by interior g erms, admit no external increase by means of suffixes and affixes ;† an increase which we have * Whence the German bruder, with the s ame cons onants . † Even in the Sans crit s everal tens es are formed by aggregation; for example, in the firs t future, the s ubs tantive verb ‘to be’ is added to the radical. In a s imilar manner we find in the Greek mach-tso, if the s be not the effect of inflexion, and in L a t i n pot-ero (Bopp, p. 26 and 66).

These are examples of incorporation and agglutination in the gram-

Y 2

324

CLASSIFICATION

Of

LANGUAGES.

already mentioned several times under the name of agglutination or incorporation. Many things, which appear to us at present inflexions of a radical, have perhaps been in their origin affixes, of which there have barely remained one or two consonants.

In languages, as in even thing in nature that is organized, nothing is entirely isolated or unlike. The farther we penetrate into their internal structure, the more do contrasts and decided characters vanish.

It may be said that they are like clouds, the outlines of which do not appear well defined, except when viewed at a distance.

But though we may not admit one simple and absolute principle in the classification of languages, yet it cannot be decided, that in their present state some manifest a greater tendency to inflexion, others to external aggregation. It is well known, that the languages of the Indian, Pelasgic, and German branch, belong to the first division; the American idioms, the Coptic or ancient Egyptian, and to a certain degree, the Semitic languages and the Biscayan, to the second. The little we have made known of the idiom of the Chaymas of Caripe, sufficiently proves that constant tendency towards the incorporation or aggregation of certain forms, which it is easy to separate; though from a somewhat refined sentiment of euphony some letters have been dropped and others have been added. Those affixes, by lengthening words, indicate the most varied relations of number, time, and motion.

W h e n we reflect on the peculiar structure of the American languages, we imagine we discover the source of the opinion generally entertained from the most remote time in the Missions, that these languages have an analogy with the Hebrew and the Biscayan. A t the convent of Caripe as well as at the Orinoco, in Peru as well as in Mexico, I heard this opinion expressed, particularly by monks who had some matical system of languages which are justly cited as models of an interior developement by inflexion.

In the grammatical system of the American tongues, for example in the Tamanac, tarecschi, ‘ I will carry,’ is equally composed of the radical ar (infin. jareri, ‘ to carry’) and of the verb ecschi (Infin. nocschiri, ‘ to b e ’ ) . There hardly exists in the American languages a triple mode of aggregation, of which we cannot find a similar and analogous example in some other language that is supposed to develope itself only by inflexion.

GRAMMATICAL

CONSTRUCTION.

325

vague notions of the Semitic languages. Did motives supposed to be favourable to religion, give rise to this extraordinary theory ? In the north of America, among the Choctaws and the Chickasaws, travellers somewhat credulous have heard the strains of the Hallelujah* of the Hebrews; as, according to the Pundits, the three sacred words of the mysteries of the Eleusis† (konx om pax) resound still in the Indies. I do not mean to suggest, that the nations of Latin Europe may have called whatever has a foreign physiognomy Hebrew or Biscayan, as for a long time all those monuments were called Egyptian, which were not in the Grecian or Roman style. I am rather disposed to think that the grammatical system of the American idioms has confirmed the missionaries of the sixteenth century in their ideas respecting the Asiatic origin of the nations of the New World, The tedious compilation of Father Garcia. Tratado del Origen de los Indios,‡ is a proof of this. The position of the possessive and personal pronouns at the end of the noun and the verb, as well as the numerous tenses of the latter, characterize the Hebrew and the other Semitic languages. Some of the missionaries were struck at finding the same peculiarities in the American tongues: they did not reflect, that the analogy of a few scattered features does not prove languages to belong to the same stock.

It appears less astonishing, that men, who are well acquainted with only two languages extremely heterogeneous, the Castilian and the Biscayan, should have found in the latter a family resemblance to the American languages.

The composition of words, the facility with which the partial (dements are d e l e c t e d , the forms of the verbs, and their dif-

ferent modifications, may have caused and kept up this illusion. Put we repeat, an equal tendency towards aggregation or incorporation does not constitute an identity of origin.

The following are examples of the relations between the American and Biscayan languages; idioms totally different in their roots.

In Chayma, quenpotupra quoguaz, ‘ I do not know,’ properly, ‘knowing not I am.’ In Tamanac, jarer-uac-ure, * L'Escarbot, Charlevoix, and even Adair (Hist, of the American Indians, 1775). † Asiat. Res., vol. v. Ouvaroff on the Eleusinian Mysteries, 1816. ‡ Treatise on the Origin of the Indians.

326

COMPOUND

WORDS.

' bearing am I,—I bear'; anarepra aichi, ' he will not bear,* properly, ' bearing not will h e ' ; patcurbe, ' g o o d ' ; patcutari, 'to make himself g o o d ' ; Tamanacu, ' a Tamanac'; Tamanacutari, 'to make himself a Tamanac;' Pongheme, 'a Spaniard'; ponghemtari, ' t o Spaniardize himself ; tenecchi, ' I will see'; teneicre, ' I will see again'; teccha, ' I go'; tecshare, ' I ret u r n ' ; maypur butke, ' a little May pure Indian'; aicabutke, ' a little woman;' maypuritaje, ' an ugly Maypure Indian'; aicataje, 'an ugly woman.'* In Biscayan: maitetutendot, ' I love him,' properly, ' I loving have him;' beguia, ' t h e eye,' and beguitsa, ' t o see;' aitagana, ' towards the father:' by adding tu, we form the verb aitaganatu, ' to go towards the father;' ume-tasuna, ' soft and infantile ingenuity;' umequeria, ' disagreeable childishness.'

I may add to these examples some descriptive compounds, which call to mind the infancy of nations, and strike us equally in the American and Biscayan languages, by a certain ingenuousness of expression. In Tamanac, the wasp (uane-imu), 'father (im-de;) of honey (uane);'† the toes,ptarimucuru, properly, ' the sons of the f o o t ; ' the fingers, amgnamucuru, 'the sons of the hand;' mushrooms, jeje-panari, properly, ' t h e ears (panari) of a tree (jeje);' the veins of the hand, amgna-mith, properly, ' the ramified roots ;' leaves, prutpe-jareri, properly, ' the hair at the top of the tree;' puirene-veju, properly, the sun (veju), 'straight' or 'perpendicular;' lightning,‡ kinemeru-uaptori, properly, 'the fire (uapto) of the thunder,' or ' of the storm.' In Biscayau, beroquia, the forehead, 'what belongs (co and quia) to the eye (beguia) ;' odotsa, ' the noise (otsa) of the cloud (odeia),' or thunder; arribicia, an echo, properly, 'the animated stone,' from arria, stone, and bicia, life.

The Chayma and Tamanac verbs have an enormous com* The diminutive of ' w o m a n ' (aica) or of 'Maypure Indian' is formed by adding butke, which is the termination of cujuputke, ' little': taje answers to the accio of the Italians. † It may not be unnecessary here to acquaint the reader that honey is produced by an insect of South America, belonging to, or nearly allied, to the wasp genus. This honey, however, possesses noxious qualities which are by some naturalists attributed to the plant Paulinia Australis, the juices of which are collected by the insect. ‡ I recognise in kinemeru, 'thunder' or ' storm,' the root kineme ' black.'

INFLEXION OF VERBS.

327

plication of tenses: two Presents, four Preterites, three Futures. This multiplicity characterises the rudest American languages. Astarloa reckons, in like manner, in the grammatical system of the Biscayan, two hundred and six forms of the verb. Those languages, the principal tendency of which is inflexion, are to the common observer less interesting than those which seem formed by aggregation. In the first, the elements of which words are composed, and which are generally reduced to a few letters, are no longer recognisable: these elements, when isolated, exhibit no meaning; the whole is assimilated and mingled together. The American languages, on the contrary, are like complicated machines, the wheels of which are exposed to view. The mechanism of their construction is visible. W e seem to be present at their formation, and we should pronounce them to be of very recent origin, did we not recollect that the human mind steadily follows an impulse once given; that nations enlarge, improve, and repair the grammatical edifice of their languages, according to a plan already determined; finally, that there are countries, whose languages, institutions, and arts, have remained unchanged, we might almost say stereotyped, during the lapse of ages.

The highest degree of intellectual development has been hitherto found among the nations of the Indian and Pelasgic branch. The languages formed principally by aggregation seem themselves to oppose obstacles to the improvement of the mind. They are devoid of that rapid movement, that interior life, to which the inflexion of the root is favourable, and which impart such charms to works of imagination.

Let us not, however, forget, that a people celebrated in remote antiquity, a people from whom the Greeks themselves borrowed knowledge, had perhaps a language, the construction of which recals involuntarily that of the languages of America. What a structure of little monosyllabic and dissyllabic forms is added to the verb and to the substantive, in the Coptic language!

The semi-barbarous Chayma and Tamanac have tolerably short abstract words to express grandeur, envy, and lightness, cheictivate, uoite, and uonde; but in Coptic, the word malice,* metrepherpetou, * See, on the incontestible identity of the ancient Egyptian and Coptic, and on the particular system of synthesis of the latter language, the in-

328

TRANSLATIONS FROM THEOCRITUS.

is composed of five elements, easy to be distinguished. This compound signifies 'the quality (met) of a subject (reph), which makes (er) the thing which is (pet), evil (ou).' Nevertheless the Coptic language has had its literature, like the Chinese, the roots of which, far from being aggregated, scarcely approach each other without immediate contact.

W e must admit that nations once roused from their lethargy, and tending towards civilization, find in the most uncouth languages the secret of expressing with clearness the conceptions of the mind, and of painting the emotions of the soul. Don Juan de la Rea, a highly estimable man, who perished in the sanguinary revolutions of Quito, imitated with graceful simplicity some Idyls of Theocritus in the language of the Incas ; and I have been assured, that, excepting treatises on science and philosophy, there is scarcely any work of modern literature that might not be translated into the Peruvian.

The intimate connection established between the natives of the New World and the Spaniards since the conquest, have introduced a certain number of American words into the Castilian language. Some of these words express things not unknown before the discovery of the New World, and scarcely recal to our minds at present their barbarous origin.* Almost all belong to the language of the great Antilles, formerly termed the language of Hayti, of Quizqueja, or of Itis.† I shall confine myself to citing the words maïz, tabaco, canoa, bntata, cacique, balsa, conuco, &c. When the Spaniards, after the year 1498, began to visit the mainland, they already had w o r d s ‡to designate the vegetable productions most useful genions reflexions of M . Silvestre de Sacy, in the Notice des Recherches de M. Etienne Qnatremère sur la Littérature de l'Egypte. * For example savannah, and cannibal. † The word Itis, for Hayti or St. Domingo (Hispaniola), is found in the Itinerarium of Bishop Geraldini (Rome, 1 6 3 1 . ) — " Quum Colonus Itim insulam cerneret." ‡ The following are Haytian words, in their real form, which have passed into the Castilian language since the end of the 15th century. Many of them are not uninteresting to descriptive botany. Ahi (Capsicum baccatum), batata (Convolvus batatas'), bihao (Heliconia bihai), caimito (Chrysophyllum caimito), cahoba (Swietenia mahagoni), jucca and casabi (Jatropha manihot) ; the word casabi or cassava is employed only for the bread made with the roots of the Jatropha (the name of the plant jucca,

HAYTIAN WORDS.

329

to man, and common both to the islands and to the coasts of Cumana and Paria. Not satisfied with retaining these words borrowed from the Haytians, they helped also to spread them all over America (at a period when the language of Hayti was already a dead language), and to diffuse them among nations who were ignorant even of the existence of the West India Islands. Some words, which are in daily use in the Spanish colonies, are attributed erroneously to the Haytians.

Banana is from the Chaconese, the Mbaja language; arepa (bread of manioc, or of the Jatropha manihot) and guayuco (an apron, perizoma) are Caribbee: curiam (a very long boat) is Tamanac: chinchorro (a hammock), and tutuma (the fruit of the Crescentia cujete, or a vessel to contain a liquid), are Chayma words.

I have dwelt thus long on considerations respecting the American tongues, because I am desirous of directing attention to the deep interest attached to this kind of research. This interest is analogous to that inspired by the monuments of semi-barbarous nations, which are examined was also heard by Amerieo Vespucci on the coast of Paria); age or ajes (Dioscorca alata), copei (Clusia alba), gnayacan (Guaiacum officinale), guajaba (Psidium pyriferum), guanaravo (Anona muricata), mani (Arachis hypogsea), guama (Inga), henequen (was supposed from the erroneous accounts of the first travellers to be an herb with which the Haytians used to cut metals ; it means now every kind of strong thread), hicaco (Chrysobalanus icaco), maghei (Agave Americana), mahiz or maïz (Zea, maize), mamei (Mammea Americana), mangle (Rhizophora), pitahaja (Cactus pitahaja), ceiba (Bombax), tuna (Cactus tuna), hicotea (a tortoise), iguana (Lacerta iguana), manati (Trichecus manati), nigua (Pulex penetrans), hamaca (a hammock), balsa (a raft; however balsa is an old Castilian word signifying a pool of water), barbacoa (a small bed of light wood, or reeds), canei or buhio (a hut), canoa (a canoe), cocujo (Elater noctilucus, the fire-fly), chicha (fermented liquor), macana (a large stick or club, made with the petioles of a palm-tree), tabaco (not the herb, but the pipe through which it is smoked), cacique (a chief).

Other American words, now as much in use among the Creoles, as the Arabic words naturalized in the Spanish, do not belong to the Haytian tongue; for example, caiman, piragua, papaja (Carica), aguacate (Persea), tarabita, paramo. Abbé Gili thinks with some probability, that they are derived from the tongue of some people who inhabited the temperate climate between Coro, the mountains of Merida, and the tableland of Bogotá- (Saggio, vol. iii., p. 228.) How many Celtic and German words would not Julius Cæsar and Tacitus have handed down to us, had the productions of the northern countries visited by the Romans differed as much from the Italian and Roman, as those of equinoctial America!

330

THE

PAUIAOOTOS.

not because they deserve to be ranked among works of art, but because the study of them throws light on the history of our species, and the progressive development of our faculties.

It now remains for me to speak of the other Indian nations inhabiting the provinces of Cumana and Barcelona.

These I shall only succinctly enumerate.

I. The Pariagotos or Parias.

It is thought that the terminations in goto, as Pariagoto, Purugoto, Avarigoto, Acherigoto, Cumanagoto, Arinagoto, Kirikirisgoto,* imply a Caribbean origin.t All these tribes, excepting the Purugotos of the Rio Caura, formerly occupied the country which has been so long under the dominion of the Caribbees; namely, the coasts of Berbice and of Essequibo, the peninsula of Paria, the plains of Piritu and Barima. By this last name the little-known country, between the sources of the Cujuni, the Caroni, and the Mao, is designated in the Missions. The Paria Indians arc mingled in part with the Chaymas of Cumana; others have been settled by the Capuchins of Aragon in the Missions of Caroni; for instance, at Cupapuy and Alta-Gracia, where they still speak their own language, apparently a dialect between the Tamanac and the Caribbee.

But it may be asked, is the name Parias or Pariagotos, a name merely geographical ? Did the Spaniards, who frequented these coasts from their first establishment in the island of Cubagua and in Macarapana, give the name of the promontory of Paria‥to the tribe by * The Kirikirisgotos (or Kirikiripas) are of Dutch Guiana.

It is very remarkable, that among the small Brazilian tribes who do not speak the language of the Tupis, the Kiriris, notwithstanding the enormous distance of 650 leagues, have several Tamanac words. †In the Tamanac tongue, which is of the same branch as the Caribbean, we find also the termination goto, as in anekiamgoto ' an animal.'

Often an analogy in the termination of names, far from showing an identity of race, only indicates that the names of the nations are borrowed from one language. ‥ Paria, Uraparia, even Huriaparia and Payra, are the ancient names of the country, written as the first navigators thought they heard them pronounced. It appears to me by no means probable, that the promontory of Paria should derive its name from that of a cacique Uriapari, celebrated for the manner in which he resisted Diego Ordaz in 1530, thirty-two years after Columbus had heard the name of Paria from the mouths of the natives themselves. The Orinoco at its mouth had also the name of Uriapari, Yuyapari, or Iyupari. In all these denominations of a

THE GUARAONS.

331

which it was inhabited ? This we will not positively affirm ; for the Caribbees themselves give the name of Caribana to a country which they occupied, and which extended from the Rio Sinu .to the gulf of Darien.

This is a striking example of identity of name between an American nation and the territory it possessed. W e may conceive, that in a state of society, where residence is not long fixed, such instances must be very rare.

I I . The Guaraons or Gu-ara-una, almost all free and independent, are dispersed in the Delta of the Orinoco, with the variously ramified channels of which they alone are well acquainted.

The Caribbees call the Guaraons U-ara-u.

They owe their independence to the nature of their country ; for the missionaries, in spite of their zeal, have not been tempted to follow them to the tree-tops. The Guaraons, in order to raise their abodes above the surface of the waters at the period of the great inundations, support them on the hewn trunks of the mangrove-tree and of the Mauritia palm-tree.* They make bread of the medullary Hour of this palm-tree, which is the sago of America.

The flour bears the name of yuruma: I have eaten it at the town of St. Thomas, in Guiana, and it was very agreeable to the taste, resembling rather the cassava-bread great river, of a shore, and of a rainy country, I think I recognise the radical par, signifying water, not only in the languages of these countries, but also in those of nations very distant from one another on the eastern and western coasts of America.

The sea, or great water, is in the Caribbean, Maypure, and Brazilian languages, parana: in the Tamanac, parara.

In Upper Guiana also the Orinoco is called Parara.

In the Peruvian, or Quichua, I find ' rain,' para; ' to rain,' parani.

Besides, there is a lake in Peru that has been very anciently called Paria. (Garcia, Origen de los Indios, p. 292.) I have entered into these minute details concerning the word Paria, because it has recently been supposed that some connection might be traced between this word and the country of the Hindoo caste called the Parias. * Their manners have been the same from time immemorial.

Cardinal Bembo described them at the beginning of the 16th century, " quibusdam in locis propter paludes incolĂŚ domus in arboribus ĂŚdificant."

(Hist. Venet., 1551.) Sir Walter Raleigh, in 1595, speaks of the Guaraons under the names of Araottes, Trivitivas, and Warawites.

These were perhaps the names of some tribes, into which the great Guaraonese nation was divided.

(Barrère, Essai sur l'Hist. Naturelle de la France Equinoctiale.)

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INDIAN NATIONS.

than the sago of India.* The Indians assured me that the trunks of the Mauritia, the tree of life so much vaunted by father Gumilla, do not yield meal in any abundance, unless the palm-tree is cut down just before the flowers appear. Thus too the maguey,† cultivated in New Spain, furnishes a saccharine liquor, the wine (pulque) of the Mexicans, only at the period when the plant shoots forth its long stem, By interrupting the blossoming, nature is obliged to carry elsewhere the saccharine or amylaceous matter, which would accumulate in the flowers of the maguey and in the fruit of the Mauritia. Some families of Guaraons, associated with the Chaymas, live far from their native land, in the Missions of the plains or llanos of Cumana; for instance, at Santa Rosa de Ocopi. Five or six hundred of them voluntarily quitted their marshes, a few years ago, and formed, on the northern and southern banks of the Orinoco, twenty-five leagues distant from Cape Barima, two considerable villages, under the names of Zacupana and Imataca. When I made my journey in Caripe, these Indians were still without missionaries, and lived in complete independence. Their excellent qualities as boatmen, their perfect knowledge of the mouths of the Orinoco, and of the labyrinth of branches communicating with each other, give the Guaraons a certain political importance.

They favour that clandestine commerce of which the island of Trinidad is the centre.

The Gammons run with extreme address on muddy lands, where the European, the Negro, or other Indians except themselves, would not dare to walk ; and it is, therefore, commonly believed, that they are of lighter weight than the rest of the natives. This is also the opinion that is held in Asia of the Burat Tartars.

The few Guaraons whom I saw were of middle size, squat, and very muscular. The lightness with which they walk in places newly dried, without sinking in, when even they have no planks tied to their feet, seemed to me the effect of long habit. Though I sailed a considerable time on the Orinoco, I never went so low as its mouth. Future tra* M . Kunth has combined together three genera of the palms, Calamus, Sigus, and Mauritia, in a new section, the Calameæ. † Agave Americana, the aloe of our gardens.

THE GUAIQUERIES.

333

vellers, who may visit those marshy regions, will rectify what I have advanced.

I I I . The Guaiqueries or Guaikeri, are the most able and most intrepid fishermen of these countries. * These people alone are well acquainted with the hank abounding with fish, which surrounds the islands of Coche, Margareta, Sola, and Testigos ; a bank of more than four hundred square leagues, extending cast and west from Maniquarez to the Boca del Draco. The Guaiqueries inhabit the island of Margareta, the peninsula of Araya, and that suburb of Cumana which bears their name. Their language is believed to be a dialect of that of the Guaraons. This would connect them with the great family of the Caribbee nations ; and the missionary Gili is of opinion that the language of the Guaiqueries is one of the numerous branches of the Caribbean tongue.* These affinities are interesting, because they lead us to perceive an ancient connection between nations dispersed over a vast extent of country, from the mouth of the

Rio Caura and the sources of the Erevato, in Parima, to French Guiana, and the coasts of Paria.†I V . The Quaquas, whom the Tamanacs call Mapoje, are a tribe formerly very warlike and allied to the Caribbees. It is a curious phenomenon to find the Quaquas mingled with the Chaymas in the Missions of Cumana, for their language, as well as the Atura, of the cataracts of the Orinoco, is a * If the name of the port Pam-patar, in the island of Margareta, be Guaiquerean, as we have no reason to doubt, it exhibits a feature of analogy with the Cumanagoto tongue, which approaches the Caribbean and Tamanac.

In Terra Firma, in the Piritu Missions, we find the village of Cayguapatar, which signifies house of Caygua. †Are the Guaiqueries, or O-aikeries, now settled on the borders of the Erevato, and formerly between the Rio Caura and the Cuchivero, near the little town of Alta Gracia, of a different origin from the Guaikeries of Cumana ? I know also, in the interior of the country, in the Missions of the Piritus, near the village of San Juan Evangelista del Guarive, a ravine very anciently called Guayquiricuar.

These resemblances seem to prove migrations from the south-west towards the coast. The termination cuar, found so often in Cumanagoto and Caribbean names, means a ravine, as in Guaymacuar (ravine of lizards), Pirichucuar (a ravine overshaded by pirichu or piritu palm-trees), Chiguatacuar (a ravine of land-shells).

Raleigh describes the Guaiqueries under the name of Ouikeries. He calls the Chaymat, Saimas, changing (according to the Caribbean pronunciation) the ch into &.

884

INDIAN NATIONS.

dialect of the Salive tongue; and their original abode was on the banks of the Assiveru, which the Spaniards call Cuchivero. They have extended their migrations one hundred leagues to the north-east. I have often heard them mentioned on the Orinoco, above the mouth of the Meta; and, what is very remarkable, it is asserted* that missionary Jesuits have found Quaquas as far distant as the Cordilleras of Popayan. Raleigh enumerates, among the natives of the island of Trinidad, the Salives, a people remarkable for their mild manners; they came from the Orinoco, and settled south of the Quaquas. Perhaps these two nations, which speak almost the same language, travelled together towards the coasts.

V . The Cumanagotos, or, according to the pronunciation of the Indians, Cumanacoto, are now settled westward of Cumana, in the Missions of Piritu, where they live by cultivating the ground. They number more than twenty-six thousand. Their language, like that of the Palencas, or Palenques, and Guarivas, is between the Tamanac and the Caribbee, but nearer to the former. These are indeed idioms of the same family; but if we are to consider them as simple dialects, the Latin must be also called a dialect of the Greek, and the Swedish a dialect of the German.

In considering the affinity of languages one with another, it must not be forgotten that these affinities may be very differently graduated; and that it would bo a source of confusion not to distinguish between simple dialects and languages of the same family.

The Cumanagotos, the Tamanacs, the Chaymas, the Guaraons, and the Caribbees, do not understand each other, in spite of the frequent analogy of words and of grammatical structure exhibited in their respective idioms. The Cumanagotos inhabited, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the mountains of the Brigantine and of Parabolata. I am unable to determine whether the Piritus, Cocheymas, Chacopatas, Tomuzas, and Topocuares, now confounded in the same villages with the Cumanagotos, and speaking their language, were originally tribes of the same nation. The Piritus • Vater, tom. iii. pt. ii., p. 364. The name of Quaqua is found on the coast of Guinea. The Europeans apply it to a horde of Negroes to the east of Cape Lahou.

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CARIBBEES.

335

take their name from the ravine Pirichucuar, where the small thorny palm-tree,* called piritu, grows in abundance ; the wood of this tree, which is excessively hard, and little combustible, serves to make pipes. On this spot the village of La Concepcion de Piritu was founded in 1556 ; it is the chief settlement of the Cumanagoto Missions, known by the name of the Misiones de Piritu.

V I . The Caribbees (Carives).

This name, which was given them by the first navigators, is retained throughout all Spanish America.

The French and the Germans have transformed it, I know not why, into CaraĂŻbes. The people call themselves Carina, Calina, and Callinaqo.

I visited some Caribbean Missions in the Llanos,†on returning from my journey to the Orinoco; and I shall merely mention that the Galibes (Caribi of Cayenne), the Tuapocas, and the Cunaguaras, who originally inhabited the plains between the mountains of Caripe (Caribe) and the village of Maturin, the Jaoi of the island of Trinidad and of the province of Cumana, and perhaps also the Guarivas, allies of the Palencas, are all tribes of the great Caribbee nation.

With respect to the other nations whose affinities of language with the Tamanac and Caribbee have been mentioned, they are not necessarily to be considered as of the same race. In Asia, the nations of Mongol origin differ totally in their physical organisation from those of Tartar origin.

Such has been, however, the intermixture of these nations, that, according to the able researches of Klaproth, the Tartar languages (branches of the ancient Oigour) are spoken at present by hordes incontestably of Mongol race. Neither the analogy nor the diversity of language suffice to solve the great problem of the filiation of nations ; they merely serve to point out probabilities.

The Caribbees, properly speaking, those who inhabit the Missions of the Cari, in the llanos of Cumana, the banks * Caudice gracili aculeato, foliis pinnatis.

Possibly of the genus Aiphanes of Willdenouw. †I shall in future use the word Llanos (loca plana, suppressing the p), without adding the equivalent words pampas, savannahs, meadows, steppes, or plains. The country between the mountains of the coast and the left bank of the Orinoco, constitutes the llanos of Cumana, Barceloua, and Caracas.

336

COLOUR OF THE INDIANS.

of the Caura, and the plains to the north-east of the sources of the Orinoco, are distinguished by their almost gigantic size from all the other nations I have seen in the new continent. Must it on this account be admitted, that the Caribbees are an entirely distinct race? and that the Guaraons and the Tamanacs, whose languages have an affinity with the Caribbee, have no bond of relationship with them ? I think not. Among the nations of the same family, one branch may acquire an extraordinary development of organization. The mountaineers of the Tyrol and Salzburgh are taller than the other Germanic races; the Samoiedes of the Altai are not so little and squat as those of the sea-coast. In like manner it would be difficult to deny that the Galibis are really Caribbees; and yet, notwithstanding the identity of languages, how striking is the difference in their stature and physical constitution!

Before Cortez entered the capital of Montezuma in 1521, the attention of Europe was fixed on the regions we have just traversed. In depicting the manners of the inhabitants of Paria and Cumana, it was thought that the manners of all the inhabitants of the new continent were described.

This remark cannot escape those who read the historians of the Conquest, especially the letters of Peter Martyr of Anghiera, written at the court of Ferdinand the Catholic.

These letters are full of ingenious observations upon Christopher Columbus, Leo X , and Luther, and are stamped by noble enthusiasm for the great discoveries of an age so rich in extraordinary events. Without entering into any detail on the manners of the nations which have been so long confounded one with another, under the vague denomination of Cumanians (Cumaneses), it appears to me important to clear up a fact which I have often heard discussed in Spanish

America.

The Pariagotos of the present time are of a brown red colour, as are the Caribbees, the Chaymas, and almost all the nations of the New World. W h y do the historians of the sixteenth century affirm that the first navigators saw white men with fair hair at the promontory of Paria ? Were they of the same race as those Indians of a less tawny hue, whom M. Bonpland and myself saw at Esmeralda, near the sources of the Orinoco ? But these Indians had hair as

337

NATIVE WHITE RACES.

black as the Otomacs and other tribes, whose complexion is the darkest. Were they albinoes, such as have been found heretofore in the isthmus of Panama ? But examples of that degeneration are very rare in the copper-coloured race; and Anghiera, as well as Gomara, speaks of the inhabitants of Paria in general, and not of a few individuals. Both describe them as if they were people of Germanic origin they call them ' "Whites with light hair;' they even add, that they wore garments like those of the Turks.† Gomara and Anghiera wrote from such oral information as they had been able to collect.

These marvels disappear, if we examine the recital which Ferdinand Columbus drew up from his father's papers.

There we find simply, that " the admiral was surprised to * " Æthiopes nigri, crispi lanati ; Pariæ incolæ albi, capillis oblongis dec. 1, lib. vi., (ed. 1574). protensis flavis."—Pet. Martyr, Ocean., " Utriusque sexus indigenæ albi veluti nostrates, prater eos qui sub sole versantur.''

(The natives of both sexes are as white as our people [Spaniards], except those who are exposed to the sun.)—Ibid.

Gomara, 8peaking of the natives seen by Columbus at the mouth of the river of Cumana, says : " Las donzellas eran amorosas, desnudas y blancas (las de la casa); los Indios que van al campo estan negros del s o l . " (The young women are engaging in their manners : they wear no clothing, and those who live in the houses are white.

The Indians who are much in the open country are black, from the effect of the sun.)—Hist, de los Indios, cap. 74. " Los Indios de Paria son blancos y rubios."—(The Indians of Paria are white and red.) Garcia, Origen de los Indios, 1729, lib. iv. cap. 9. † " They wear round their head a striped cotton handkerchief."— Ferd. Columb., cap. 7 1 . (Churchill, vol. ii.) Was this kind of headdress taken for a turban ? (Garcia, Origen de los Ind., p. 3 0 3 ) . I am surprised that people of these regions should have worn a head-dress; but, what is more curious still, Pinzon, in a voyage which he made alone to the coast of Paria, the particulars of which have been transmitted to us

by Peter Martyr of Anghiera, professes to have seen natives who were clothed : " Incolas omnes genu terms mares, fœminas suramin tenus, gossampinis vestibus amictos simplicibus repererunt; sed viros more Turcorum iusuto minutim gossypio ad belli usum duplicibus."

(The natives were clothed in thin cotton garments; the men's reaching to the knee, and the women's to the calf of the leg. Their war-dress was thicker, and closely stitched with cotton after the Turkish manner.)—Pet. Martyr, dec. ii-, lib. vii. W h o were these people described as being comparatively civilized, and clothed with tunics (like those who lived on the summit of the Andes), and seen on a coast, where before and since the time of Pinzon, only naked men have ever been seen ?

VOL. I.

Z

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NATIVE WHITE RACES.

see the inhabitants of Paria, and those of the island of Trinidad, better made, more civilized (de buena conversacion), and whiter than the natives whom he had previously seen."* This certainly did not mean that the Pariagotos are white. The lighter colour of the skin of the natives, and the great coolness of the mornings on the coast of Paria, seemed to confirm the fantastic hypothesis which that great man had framed, respecting the irregularity of the curvature of the earth, and the height of the plains in this region, which he regarded as the effect of an extraordinary swelling of the globe in the direction of the parallels of latitude. Amerigo Vespucci (in his pretended first voyage, apparently written from the narratives of other navigators) compares the natives to the Tartar nations,† not in regard to their colour, but on account of the breadth of their faces, and the general expression of their physiognomy.

Put if it be certain, that at the end of the fifteenth century there were on the coast of Cumana a few men with white skins, as there are in our days, it must not thence be concluded, that the natives of the New World exhibit everywhere a similar organization of the dermoidal system. I t is not less inaccurato to say, that they are all coppercoloured, than to affirm that they would not have a tawny hue, if they were not exposed to the heat of the sun, or tanned by the action of the air.

The natives may be divided into two very unequal portions with respect to numbers ; to the first belong the Esquimaux of Greenland, of Labrador, and the northern coast of Hudson's Bay, the inhabitants of Behring's Straits, of the peninsula * Churchill's Collection, vol. ii. Herrera, pp. 8 0 , 8 3 , 84.

Munoz, Hist, del Nuevo Mundo, vol. i., " El color era baxo como es regular en los Indios, pero mas claro que en las islas reconocidas." (Their colour was dark, as is usual among the Indians ; but lighter than that of the people of the islands previously known.) The missionaries are accustomed to call those Indians who are less black, less tawny, whitish, and even almost white.—Gumilla, Hist, de l'Orenoque, vol. i., chap, v., § 2.

Such incorrect expressions may mislead those who are not accustomed to the exaggerations in which travellers often indulge. † Vultu non multum speciosi sunt, quoniam latas facies Tartariis adsimilatas habent.

(Their countenances are not handsome, their cheekbones being broad like those of the Tartars.)—Americi Vesputii Navigatio Prima, in Gryn's Orbis Novus, 1555.

339

HYPERBOREAN TRIBES.

of Alaska, and of Prince William's Sound. The eastern and western branches* of this polar race, the Esquimaux and the Tschougases, though at the vast distance of eight hundred leagues apart, are united by the most intimate analogy of languages. This analogy extends even to the inhabitants of the north-east of A s i a ; for the idiom of the Tschouktsches† at the mouth of the Anadir, has the same roots as the language of the Esquimaux who inhabit the coast of America opposite to Europe. The Tschouktsches are the Esquimaux of Asia. Like the Malays, that hyperborean race reside only on the sea-coasts. They are almost all smaller in stature than the other Americans, and are quick, lively, and talkative. Their hair is almost straight, and black ; but their skin (and this is very characteristic of the race, which I shall designate under the name of Tschougaz-Esquimaux) is originally whitish.

It is certain that the children of the Greenlanders are born white ; some retain that whiteness ; and often in the brownest (the most tanned) the redness of the blood is seen to appear on their cheeks. ‡ The second portion of the natives of America includes all those nations which are not Tschougaz-Esquimaux, beginning from Cook's River to the Straits of Magellan, from the Ugaljachmouzes and the Kinaese of Mount St. Elias, to the Puelches and Tehuelhets of the southern hemisphere.

The men who belong to this second branch, are taller, stronger, more warlike, and more taciturn than the others.

They present also very remarkable differences in the colour of their skin. In Mexico, Peru, New Grenada, Quito, on the banks of the Orinoco and of the river Amazon, in every part of South America which I have explored, in the plains as well as on the coldest table-lands, the Indian children of two or three months old have the same bronze tint as * Vater, in Mithridates, vol. iii. Egede, Krantz, Hearne, Mackenzie, Portlock, Chwostoff, Davidoff, Resanoff, Merk, and Billing, have described the great family of these Tschougaz-Esquimaux. † I mean here only the Tschouktsches who have fixed dwelling-places, for the wandering Tschouktsches approach very near the Koriaks. ‡ Krantz, Hist, of Greenland, 1667, tom. i. Greenland does not seem to have been inhabited in the eleventh century; at least the Esquimaux appeared only in thefourteenth,coming from the west.

z 2

340

DISTINCTION

OF

TRIBES.

is observed in adults. The idea that the natives may be whites tanned by the air and the sun, could never have occurred to a Spanish inhabitant of Quito, or of the banks of the Orinoco. In the north-east of America, on the contrary, we meet with tribes among whom the children are white, and at the age of virility they acquire the bronze colour of the natives of Mexico and Peru. Michikinakoua, chief of the Miamis, had his arms, and those parts of his body not exposed to the sun, almost white. This difference of hue between the parts covered and not covered is never observed among the natives of Peru and Mexico, even in families who live much at their ease, and remain almost constantly within doors. To the west of the Miamis, on the coast opposite to Asia, among the Kolouches and Tchinkitans* of Norfolk Sound, grown-up girls, when they have washed their skin, display the white hue of Europeans.

This whiteness is found also, according to some accounts, among the mountaineers of Chile.† These facts are very remarkable, and contrary to the opinion so generally spread, of the extreme conformity of organization among the natives of America. I f we divide them into Esquimaux and non-Esquimaux, we readily admit that this classification is not more philosophical than that of the ancients, who saw in the whole of the habitable world only Celts and Scythians, Greeks, and Barbarians. When, however, our purpose is to group numerous nations, we gain something by proceeding in the mode of exclusion. All we have sought to establish here is, that, in separating the whole race of Tschougaz-Esquimaux, there remain still, among the coppery-brown Americans, other races, the children of which are born white, without our being able to prove, by going back as far as the history o f the Conquest, that they have been mingled with European blood. This fact deserves to be cleared up by tra* Between 5 4 ° and 58° of latitude. These white nations have been visited successively by Portlock, Marchand, Baranoff, and Davidoff.

The Tchinkitans, or Schinkit, are the inhabitants of the island of Sitka.

Vater, Mithridates, vol. iii., p. 2. Marchand, Voyages, vol. ii. † Molina, Saggio suit' Istoria Nat. del Chile, edit. 2, p. 2 9 3 . May we believe the existence of those blue eyes of the Boroas of Chile and Gnayanas of Uruguay, represented to us as nations of the race of Odin ?

Azara, Voyage, tom. ii.

DIFFERENCES OF COLOUR.

341

vellera who may possess a knowledge of physiology, and may have opportunities of examining the Drown children of the Mexicans at the age of two years, as well as the white children of the Miamis, and those hordes* on the Orinoco, who, living in the most sultry regions, retain during their whole lite, and in the fulness of their strength, the whitish skin of the Mestizoes.

In man, the deviations from the common type of the whole race are apparent in the stature, the physiognomy, or the form of the body, rather than on the colour of the skin.† It is not so with animals, where varieties are found more in colour than in form. The hair of the mammiferous class of animals, the feathers of birds, and even the scales of fishes, change their hue, according to the lengthened influence of light and darkness, and the intensity of heat and cold. In man, the colouring matter seems to be deposited in the epidermis by the roots or the bulbs of the hair : ‡ and all sound observations prove, that the skin varies in colour from the action of external stimuli on individuals, and not hereditarily in the whole race. The Esquimaux of Greenland and the Laplanders are tanned by the influence of the air; but their children are born white.

W e will not decide on the changes which nature may have produced in a space of time exceeding all historical tradition. Reason stops short in these matters, when no longer under the guidance of experience and analogy.

All white-skinned nations begin their cosmogony by white men; they allege that the negroes and all tawny people have been blackened or embrowned by the excessive heat of the sun. This theory, adopted by the Greeks,§ though it did not pass without contradiction,|| has been propagated * These whitish tribes are the Guaycas, the Ojos, and the Maquiritares. † The circumpolar nations of the two continents are small and squat, though of races entirely different. ‡ Adverting to the interesting researches of M . Gaultier, on the organisation of the human skin, John Hunter observes, that in several animals the colorating of the hair is independent of that of the skin. § Strabo, liv. xv. || Onesicritus, apud Strabonem, lib. xv.

Alexander's expedition appears to have contributed greatly to fix the attention of the Greeks on the great question of the influence of climates. They had learned from

342

ERRONEOUS

THEORY.

even to our own times. Buffon has repeated in prose what Theodectes had expressed in verse two thousand years before : " that nations wear the livery of the climate in which they live." If history had been written by black nations, they would have maintained what even Europeans have recently advanced,* that man was originally black, or of a very tawny colour; and that mankind have become white in some races, from the effect of civilization and progressive debilitation, as animals, in a state of domestication, pass from dark to lighter colours. In plants and in animals, accidental varieties, formed under our own eyes, have become fixed, and have been propagated ;† but nothing proves, that in the present state of human organization, the different races of black, yellow, copper-coloured, and white men, when they remain unmixed, deviate considerably from their primitive type, by the influence of climate, of food, and other external agents.

These opinions are founded on the authority of Ulloa.‡ That learned writer saw the Indians of Chile, of the Andes of Peru, of the burning coasts of Panama, and those of Louisiana, situated in the northern temperate zone. He had the accounts of travellers, that in Hindostan the nations of the south were of darker colour than those of the north, near the mountains : and they supposed that they were both of the same race. * See the work of Mr. Prichard, abounding with curious research. " Researches into the Physical History of Man, 1 8 1 3 , " p. 239. † For example, the sheep with very short legs, called ancon .sheep in Connecticut, and examined by Sir Everard Home. This variety dates only from the year 1791. ‡ "The Indians [Americans] are of a copper-colour, which by the action of the sun and the air grows darker. I must remark, that neither heat nor cold produces any sensible change in the colour, so that the Indians of the Cordilleras of Peru are easily confounded with those of the hottest plains; and those who live under the Line cannot be distinguished, by their colour, from those who inhabit the fortieth degree of north and south latitude."—Noticias Americanas. No ancient author has so clearly stated the two forms of reasoning, by which we still explain in our days the differences of colour and features among neighbouring nations, as Tacitus. He makes a just distinction between the influence of climate, and hereditary dispositions ; and, like a philosopher persuaded of our profound ignorance of the origin of things, he leaves the question undecided. " Habitus corporum varii; atque ex eo argumenta, seu durante originis vi, seu procurrentibus in diversa terris, positio cœli corporibus habitum dedit."—Agricola, cap. ii.

PREPARATIONS FOR A JOURNEY.

343

the good fortune to live at a period when theories were less numerous; and, like me, he was struck by seeing the natives equally bronzed under the Line, in the cold climate of the Cordilleras, and in the plains. Where differences of colour are observed, they depend on the race. W e shall soon find on the burning banks of the Orinoco Indians with a whitish skin. Durans originis vis est.

CHAPTER X .

Second abode at Cumana.—Earthquakes.—Extraordinary Meteors.

WE remained a month longer at Cumana, employing ourselves in the necessary preparations for our proposed visit to the Orinoco and the Rio Negro. W e had to choose such instruments as could be most easily transported in narrow boats; and to engage guides for an inland journey of ten months, across a country without communication with the coasts. The astronomical determination of places being the most important object of this undertaking, I felt desirous not to miss the observation of an eclipse of the sun, which was to be visible at the end of October: and in consequence I preferred remaining till that period at Cumana, where the sky is generally clear and serene. It was now too late to reach the banks of the Orinoco before October; and the high valleys of Caracas promised less favourable opportunities, on account of the vapours which accumulate round the neighbouring mountains.

I was, however, near being compelled by a deplorable occurrence, to renounce, or at least to delay tor a long time, my journey to the Orinoco. On the 27th of October, the day before the eclipse, we went as usual, to take the air on the shore of the gulf, and to observe the instant of high water, which in those parts is only twelve or thirteen inches.

It was eight in the evening, and the breeze was not yet stirring. The sky was cloudy; and during a dead calm it was excessively hot. W e crossed the beach which separates the suburb of the Guayqueria Indians from the embarcadero.

I heard some one walking behind us, and on turning, I saw a tall man of the colour of the Zambos, naked to the waist.

344

DANGEROUS RENCONTRE.

H e held almost over my head a macana, which is a great stick of palm-tree wood, enlarged to the end like a club. I avoided the stroke by leaping towards the left; but M . Bonpland, who walked on my right, was less fortunate. H e did not see the Zambo so soon as I did, and received a stroke above the temple, which levelled him with the ground. W o were alone, without arms, half a league from any habitation, on a vast plain bounded by the sea. The Zambo, instead of attacking me, moved off slowly to pick up M. Bonpland's hat, which, having somewhat deadened the violence of the blow, had fallen off and lay at some distance. Alarmed at seeing my companion of the ground, and for some moments senseless, I thought of him only. I helped him to raise himself, and pain and anger doubled bis strength. W e ran toward the Zambo, who, either from cowardice, common enough in people of this caste, or because he perceived at a distance some men on the beach, did not wait for us, but ran off in the direction of the Tunal, a little thicket of cactus and arborescent avicennia. He chanced to fall in running; and M. Bonpland, who reached him first, seized him round the body. The Zambo drew a long knife; and in this unequal struggle we should infallibly have been wounded, if some Biscayan-merchants, who were taking the air on the beach, had not come to our assistance. The Zambo seeing himself surrounded, thought, no longer of defence. He again ran away, and we pursued him through the thorny cactuses.

A t length, tired out, he took shelter in a cow-house, whence he suffered himself to be quietly led to prison.

M. Bonpland was seized with fever during the night; but being endowed with great energy and fortitude, and possessing that cheerful disposition which is one of the most precious gifts of nature, he continued his labours the next day. The stroke of the macana had extended to the top of his head, and he felt its effect for the space of two or three months during the stay we made at Caracas. When stooping to collect plants, he was sometimes seized with giddiness,

which led us to fear that an internal abscess was forming.

Happily these apprehensions were unfounded, and the symptoms, at first alarming, gradually disappeared. The inhabitants of Cumana showed us the kindest interest. It was ascertained that the Zambo was a native of one of the

ATMOSPHERICAL

PHENOMENA.

345

Indian villages which surround the great lake of Maracaibo.

H e had served on board a privateer belonging to the island of St. Domingo, and in consequence of a quarrel with the captain he had been left on the coast of Cumana, when the ship quitted the port. Having seen the signal which we had fixed up for the purpose of observing the height of the tides, he had watched the moment when he could attack us on the beach. But why, after having knocked one of us down, was he satisfied with simply stealing a hat ? In an examination he underwent, his answers were so confused and stupid, that it was impossible to clear up our doubts. Sometimes he maintained that his intention was not to rob u s ; but that, irritated by the bad treatment he had suffered on board the privateer of St. Domingo, he could not resist the desire of attacking us, when he heard us speak French.

Justice is so tardy in this country, that prisoners, of whom the jail is full, may remain seven or eight years without being brought to trial; we learnt, therefore, with some satisfaction, that a few days after our departure from Cumana, the Zambo had succeeded in breaking out of the castle of San Antonio.

On the day after this occurrence, the 28th of October, I was, at five in the morning, on the terrace of our house, making preparations for the observation of the eclipse. The weather was fine and serene. The crescent of Venus, and the constellation of the Ship, so splendid from the disposition of its immense nebulĂŚ, were lost in the rays of the rising sun. I had a complete observation of the progress and the close of the eclipse. I determined the distance of the horns, or the differences of altitude and azimuth, by the passage over the threads of the quadrant. The eclipse terminated at 2 11' 23 4" mean time, at Cumana.

During a few days which preceded and followed the eclipse of the sun, very remarkable atmospherical phenomena were observable. It was what is called in those countries the season of winter; that is, of clouds and small electrical showers. From the 10th of October to the 3rd of November, at nightfall, a reddish vapour arose in the horizon, and covered, in a few minutes, with a veil more or less thick, the azure vault of the sky. Saussure's hygrometer, far from indicating greater humidity, often went back from h

346

METEOROLOGICAL PHENOMENA.

9 0 ° to 83°. The heat of the day was from 28° to 32°, which for this part of the torrid zone is very considerable. Sometimes, in the midst of the night, the vapours disappeared in an instant; and at the moment when I had arranged my instruments, clouds of brilliant whiteness collected at the zenith, and extended towards the horizon. On the 18th of October these clouds were so remarkably transparent, that they did not hide stars even of the fourth magnitude.

I could distinguish so perfectly the spots of the moon, that it might have been supposed its disk was before the clouds.

The latter were at a prodigious height, disposed in bands, and at equal distances, as from the effect of electric repulsions :—these small masses of vapour, similar to those I saw above my head on the ridge of the highest Andes, are, in several languages, designated by the name of sheep.

When the reddish vapour spread lightly over the sky, the great stars, which in general, at Cumana, scarcely scintillate below 20° or 25°, did not retain even at the zenith, their steady and planetary light. They scintillated at all altitudes, as after a heavy storm of rain.* It was curious that the vapour did not affect the hygrometer at the surface of the earth. I remained a part of the night seated in a balcony, from which I had a view of a great part of the horizon. In every climate I feel a peculiar interest in fixing my eyes, when the sky is serene, on some great constellation, and seeing groups of vesicular vapours appear and augment, as around a central nucleus, then, disappearing, form themselves anew.

After the 28th of October, the reddish mist became thicker than it had previously been. The heat of the nights * I have not observed any direct relation between the scintillation o f the stars and the dryness of that part of the atmosphere open to our researches.

I have often seen at Cumana a great scintillation of the stars o f Orion and Sagittarius, when Saussure's hygrometer was at 85°.

At other times, these same stars, considerably elevated above the horizon, emitted a steady and planetary light, the hygrometer being at 90° or 93°.

Probably it is not the quantity of vapour, but the manner in which it idiffused, and more or less dissolved in the air, which determines the scintillation. The latter is invariably attended with a coloration of light.

It is remarkable enough, that, in northern countries, at a time when the atmosphere appears perfectly dry, the scintillation is most decided in v e r y cold weather.

SHOCK OF AN EARTHQUAKE.

347

seemed stifling, though the thermometer rose only to 26째.

The breeze, which generally refreshed the air from eight or nine o'clock in the evening, was no longer felt. The atmosphere was burning hot, and the parched and dusty ground was cracked on every side. On the 4th of November, about two in the afternoon, large clouds of peculiar blackness enveloped the high mountains of the Brigantine and the Tataraqual. They extended by degrees as far as the zenith.

About four in the afternoon thunder was heard over our heads, at an immense height, not regularly rolling, but with a hollow and often interrupted sound. A t the moment of the strongest electric explosion, at 4 .12', there were two shocks of earthquake, which followed each other at the interval of fifteen seconds. The people ran into the streets, uttering loud cries. M . Bonpland, who was leaning over a table examining plants, was almost thrown on the floor.

I felt the shock very strongly, though I was lying in a hammock. Its direction was from north to south, which is rare at Cumana. Slaves, who were drawing water from a well more than eighteen or twenty feet deep, near the river Manzanares, heard a noise like the explosion of a strong charge of gunpowder. The noise seemed to come from the bottom of the well; a very curious phenomenon, though very common in most of the countries of America which are exposed to earthquakes. h

A few minutes before the first shock there was a very violent blast of wind, followed by electrical rain falling in great drops.

I immediately tried the atmospherical electricity

by the electrometer of Volta.

The small balls

separated four lines; the electricity often changed from positive to negative, as is the case during storms, and, in the north of Europe, even sometimes in a fall of snow. The sky remained cloudy, and the blast of wind was followed by a dead calm, which lasted all night. The sunset presented a picture of extraordinary magnificence. The thick veil of clouds was rent asunder, as in shreds, quite near the horizon; the sun appeared at 12 degrees of altitude on a sky of indigo-blue. Its disk was enormously enlarged, distorted, and undulated toward the edges. The clouds were gilded; and fascicles of divergent rays, reflect

348

PROGNOSTICS

OF

EARTHQUAKES.

ing the most brilliant rainbow hues, extended over the heavens. A great crowd of people assembled in the public square. This celestial phenomenon,—the earthquake,—the thunder which accompanied it,—the red vapour seen during so many days, all were regarded as the effect of the eclipse.

About nine in the evening there was another shock, much slighter than the former, but attended with a subterraneous noise. The barometer was a little lower than usual; but the progress of the horary variations or small atmospheric tides, was no way interrupted. The mercury was precisely at the minimum of height at the moment of the earthquake ; it continued rising till eleven in the evening, and sank again till half after four in the morning, conformably to the law which regulates barometrical variations. In the night between the 3rd and 4th of November the reddish vapour was so thick that I could not distinguish the situation of the moon, except by a beautiful halo of 20° diameter.

Scarcely twenty-two months had elapsed since the town of Cumana had been almost totally destroyed by an earthquake.

The people regard vapours which obscure the horizon, and the subsidence of wind during the night, as infallible prognostics of disaster. We had frequent visits from persons who wished to know whether our instruments indicated new shocks for the next, day; and alarm was great and general when, on the 5th of November, exactly at the same hour as on the preceding day, there was a violent gust of wind, attended by thunder, and a few drops of rain.

N o shock was felt. The wind and storm returned dining live o r six days at the same hour, almost at the same minute.

The inhabitants of Cumana, and of many other places between the tropics, have long since observed that atmospherical changes, which are, to appearance, the most accidental, succeed each other for whole weeks with astonishing regularity. The same phenomenon occurs in summer, in the temperate zone; nor has it escaped the perception of astronomers, who often observe, in a serene sky, during three or four days successively, clouds which have collected at the same part o f the firmament, take the same direction, and dissolve at the same height; sometimes before, sometimes

AGITATING SENSATIONS.

349

after the passage of a star over the meridian, consequently within a few minutes of the same point of true time.* The earthquake of the 4th of November, the first I had felt, made the greater impression on me, as it was accompanied with remarkable meteorological variations. It was, moreover, a positive movement upward and downward, and not a shock by undulation. I did not then imagine, that after a long abode on the table-lands of Quito and the coasts of Peru, I should become almost as familiar with the abrupt movements of the ground as we are in Europe with the sound of thunder. In the city of Quito, we never thought of rising from our beds when, during the night, subterraneous rumblings (bramidos), which seem always to come from the volcano of Pichincha, announced a shock, the force of which, however, is seldom in proportion to the intensity of the noise. The indifference of the inhabitants, who bear in mind that for three centuries past their city has not been destroyed, readily communicates itself to the least intrepid traveller. It is not so much the fear of the danger, as the novelty of the sensation, which makes so forcible an impression when the effect of the slightest earthquake is felt for the first time.

From our infancy, the idea of certain contrasts becomes fixed in our minds: water appears to us an element that moves; earth, a motionless and inert mass. These impressions are the result of daily experience; they are connected with everything that is transmitted to us by the senses. When the shook of an earthquake is felt, when the earth which we had deemed so stable is shaken on its old foundations, one instant suffices to destroy long-fixed illusions. It is like awakening from a dream; but a painful awakening. W e feel that we have been deceived by the apparent stability of nature ; we become observant of the least noise; we mistrust for the first time the soil we have so long trod witli confidence. But if the shocks be repeated, if they become frequent during several successive days, the uncertainty quickly disappears. In 1784, the inhabitants of Mexico were accustomed to hear the thunder roll beneath * M. Arago and I paid a great deal of attention to this phenomenon during a long series of observations made in the year 1809 and 1810, at t h e Observatory of Paris, with the view of verifying the declination of the stars.

350

RADIANCE OF THE STARS.

their feet,* as it is heard by us in the region of the clouds.

Confidence easily springs up in the human breast: on the coasts of Peru we become accustomed to the undulations of the ground, as the sailor becomes accustomed to the tossing of the ship, caused by the motion of the waves.

The reddish vapour which at Cumana had spread a mist over the horizon a little before sunset, disappeared after the 7th of November. The atmosphere resumed its former purity, and the firmament appeared, at the zenith, of that deep blue tint peculiar to climates where heat, light, and a great equality of electric charge seem all to promote the most perfect dissolution of water in the air. I observed, on the night of the 7th, the immersion of the second satellite of Jupiter. The belts of the planet were more distinct than I had ever seen them before.

I passed a part of the night in comparing the intensity of the light emitted by the beautiful stars which shine in the southern sky. . I pursued this task carefully in both hemispheres, at sea, and during my abode at Lima, at Guayaquil, and at Mexico. Nearly half a century has now elapsed since La Caille examined that region of the sky which is invisible in Europe.

The stars near the south pole are usually observed with so little perseverance and attention, that the greatest changes may take place in the intensity of their light and their own motion, without astronomers having the slightest knowledge of them. I think I have remarked changes of this kind in the constellation of the Crane and in that of the Ship. I compared, at first with the naked eye, the stars which are not very distant from each other, for the purpose of classing them according to the method pointed out by Herschel, in a paper read to the Royal Society of London in 1796. I afterwards employed diaphragms diminishing the aperture of the telescope, and coloured and colourless glasses placed before the eve-glass. I moreover made use of an instrument of reflexion calculated to bring simultaneously two stars into the; field of the telescope, after having equalized their light by receiving it with more or fewer rays at pleasure, reflected by the silvered part of the mirror. I admit that these photometric processes are not very precise; but I believe * Los bramidos do Guanazuato.

INTENSITY OF LIGHT.

351

the last, wh ich perh aps h ad never before been employed, might be rendered nearly exact, by adding a scale of equal parts to th e moveable frame of th e telescope of th e sextant.

It was by taking th e mean of a great number of valuations, that I saw th e relative intensity of th e ligh t of th e great stars decrease in th e following manner: Sirius, Canopus, a Centauri, Ach erner, βCentauri, Fomalh aut, Rigel, Procyon, Beteigueuse, є of the Great Dog, δ of the Great Dog, a of the Crane, a of the Peacock. These experim ents will becom e m ore interesting when travellers shall have determined anew, at intervals of forty or fifty years, som e of those changes which the celestial bodies seem to undergo, either at their surface or with respect to their distances from our planetary system .

After having m ade astronom ical observations with the same instrum ents, in our northern clim ates and in the torrid zone, we arc surprised at the effect produced in the latter (by the transparency of the air, and the less extinc tion of light), on the clearness with which the double stars, the satellites of Jupiter, or certain nebulæ, present them ­ selves. Beneath a sky equally serene in appearance, it would seem as if m ore perfect instrum ents were em ployed; so m uch m ore distinct and well defined do the objects appear between the tropics. It cannot be doubted, that at the period when equinoctial Am erica shall becom e the centre of extensive civilization, physical astronom y will make im m ense im provem ents, in proportion as the skies will be explored with excellent glasses, in the dry and hot climates of Cum ana, Coro, and the island of Margareta.

I do not here m ention the ridge of the Cordilleras, because, with the exception of som e high and nearly barren plains in Mexico and Peru, the very elevated table­lands, in which the barom etric pressure is from ten to twelve inches less than at the level of the sea, have a m isty and extrem ely variable clim ate. The extrem e purity of the atm osphere which constantly prevails in the low regions during the dry season, counterbalances the elevation of site and the rarity of the air on the table­lands. The elevated strata of the atm osphere, when they envelope the ridges of m oun­ tains, undergo rapid changes in their transparency.

The night of the 11th of Novem ber was cool and ex­

352

SHOWERS OF FALLING STARS.

tremely fine. From half after two in the morning, the most extraordinary luminous meteors were seen in the direction of the east. M. Bonpland, who had risen to enjoy the freshness of the air, perceived them first. Thousands of bolides and falling stars succeeded each other during the space of four hours. Their direction was very regular from north to south. They filled a space in the sky extending from due east 30° to north and south. In an amplitude of 60° the meteors were seen to rise above the horizon at E.N.E. and at E., to describe arcs more or less extended, and to fall towards the south, after having followed the direction of the meridian. Some of them attained a height of 40°, and all exceeded 25° or 30°. There was very little wind in the low regions of the atmosphere, and that little blew from the east. No trace of clouds was to be seen. M. Bonpland states that, from the first appearance of the phenomenon, there was not in the firmament a space equal in extent to three diameters of the moon, which was not filled every instant with bolides and falling stars.

The first were fewer in number, but as they were of different sizes, it was impossible to fix the limit between these two classes of phenomena. All these meteors left luminous traces from five to ten degrees in length, as often happens in the equinoctial regions. The phosphorescence of these traces, or luminous bands, lasted seven or eight seconds.

Many of the falling stars had a very distinct nucleus, as large as the disk of Jupiter, from which darted sparks of vivid light. The bolides seem to burst as by explosion ; but the largest, those from 1° to 1° 15' in diameter, disappeared without scintillation, leaving behind them phosphorescent bands (trabes) exceeding in breadth fifteen or twenty minutes. The light of these meteors was white, and not reddish, which must doubtless be attributed to the absence of vapour and the extreme transparency of the air. For the same reason, within the tropics, the stars of the first magnitude have, at their rising, a light decidedly whiter than in Europe.

Almost all the inhabitants of Cumana witnessed this phenomenon, because they had left their houses before four o'clock, to attend the early morning mass. They did not behold these bolides with indifference; the oldest among

FALLING METEORS.

353

them remembered that the great earthquakes of 1766 were preceded by similar phenomena. The Guaiqueries in the Indian suburb alleged " that the bolides began to appear at one o'clock ; and that as they returned from fishing in the gulf, they had perceived very small falling stars towards the east." They assured us that igneous meteors were extremely rare on those coasts after two o'clock in the morning.

The phenomenon ceased by degrees after four o'clock, and the bolides and falling stars became less frequent; but we still distinguished some to north-east by their whitish light, and the rapidity of their movement, a quarter of an hour after sunrise. This circumstance will appear less extraordinary, when I mention that in broad daylight, in 1788, the interior of the houses in the town of Popayan was brightly illumined by an aÍrolite of immense magnitude. I t passed over the town, when the sun was shining clearly, about one o'clock. M . Bonpland and myself, during our second residence at Cumana, after having observed, on the 26th of September, 1800, the immersion of the first satellite of Jupiter, succeeded in seeing the planet distinctly with the naked eye, eighteen minutes after the disk of the sun had appeared in the horizon. There was a very slight vapour in the east, but Jupiter appeared on an azure sky. These facts bear evidence of the extreme purity and transparency of the atmosphere in the torrid zone. The mass of diffused light is the less, in proportion as the vapours are more perfectly dissolved. The same cause which cheeks the diffusion of the solar light, diminishes the extinction of that which emanates either from bolides from Jupiter, or from the moon, seen on the second day after its conjunction. The 12th of November was an extremely hot day, and the hygrometer indicated a very considerable degree of dryness for those climates. The reddish vapour clouded the horizon anew, and rose to the height of 14°.

This was the last time it appeared that year; and I must here observe, that it is no less rare under the fine sky of Cumana, than it is common at Acapulco, on the western coast of Mexico.

W e did not neglect, during the course of our journey from Caracas to the Rio Negro, to enquire everywhere, VOL. I. 2 A

354

FALLING METEORS.

whether the meteors of the 12th of November had been perceived. In a wild country, where the greater number of the inhabitants sleep in the open air, so extraordinary a phenomenon could not fail to be remarked, unless it had been concealed from observation by clouds. The Capuchin missionary at San Fernando de Apure,* a village situated amid the savannahs of the province of Varinas; the Franciscan monks stationed near the cataracts of the Orinoco and at Maroa,† on the banks of the Rio N e g r o ; had seen numberless falling-stars and bolides illumine the heavens. Maroa is south-west of Cumana, at one hundred and seventy-four leagues distance. All these observers compared the phenomenon to brilliant fireworks; and it lasted from three till six in the morning.

Some of the monks had marked the day in their rituals; others had noted it by the proximate festivals of the Church. Unfortunately, none of them could recollect the direction of the meteors, or their apparent height. From the position of the mountains and thick forests which surround the Missions of the Cataracts and the little village of Maroa, I presume that the bolides were still visible at 20° above the horizon. On my arrival at the southern extremity of Spanish Guiana, at the little fort of San Carlos, I found some Portuguese, who had gone up the Rio Negro from the Mission of St. Joseph of the Maravitans. They assured me that in that part of Brazil the phenomenon had been perceived at least as far as San Gabriel das Cachoeiras, consequently as far as the equator itself. ‡ I was forcibly struck by the immense height which these bolides must have attained, to have rendered them visible simultaneously at Cumana, and on the frontiers of Brazil, in a line of two hundred and thirty leagues in length. But what was my astonishment, when, on my return to Europe, I learned that the same phenomenon had been perceived * N . lat. 7° 5 3 ' 1 2 ' ; W . long. 70° 2 0 ' . † N. lat. 2° 4 2 ' 0 " ; W . long. 70° 2 1 ' . ‡ A little to the north-west of San Antonio de Castanheiro. I did not meet with any persons who had observed this meteor, at Santa Fé de Bogota, at Popayan, or in the southern hemisphere, at Quito and Peru.

Perhaps the state of the atmosphere, so changeable in these western egions, prevented observation.

355

THEIR WIDE EXTENSION.

on an extent of the globe of 64° of latitude, and 91° of longitude ; at the equator, in South America, at Labrador, and in Germany! I saw accidentally, during my passage from Philadelphia to Bordeaux,* the corresponding observation of Mr. Ellicot (lat. 30° 4 2 ) ; and upon my return from Naples to Perlin, I read the account of the Moravian missionaries among the Esquimaux, in the Bibliothek of Göttingen.

The following is a succinct enumeration of the facts : 1st. The fiery meteors were seen in the east, and the eastnorth-east, at 40° of elevation, from 2 to G at Cumana (lat. 10° 27' 52", long. 66° 3 0 ' ) ; at Porto Cabello (lat.

10° 6' 52", long. 67° 5') ; and on the frontiers of Brazil, near the equator, in long. 70° west of the meridian of Paris. 2nd. In French Guiana (lat. 4° 56', long. 54° 35'), " t h e northern part of the sky was suffused with fire. Numberless falling-stars traversed the heavens during the space of an hour and a half, and shed so vivid a light, that those meteors might be compared to the blazing sheaves which shoot out from fireworks." The knowledge of this fact rests upon the highly trustworthy testimony of the Count de Marbois, then living in exile at Cayenne, a victim to his love of justice and of rational, constitutional liberty. 3rd.

Mr. Ellicot, astronomer to the United States, having completed his trigonometric operations for the rectification of the limits on the Ohio, being on the 12th of November in the gulf of Florida, in latitude 25°, and longitude 81° 50', saw in all parts of the sky, " as many meteors as stars, moving in all directions. Some appeared to fall perpendicularly ; and it was expected every minute that they would drop into the vessel." The same phenomenon was perceived Upon the American continent as far as latitude 30° 42', 4th. In Labrador, at Nain (lat. 56° 55'), and Hoffenthal (lat. 58° 4'); in Greenland, at Lichtenau (lat. 61° 5'), and at New Herrnhut (lat. G4° 14', long. 52° 20') ; the Esquimaux were terrified at the enormous quantity of bolides which fell during twilight at all points of the firmament, and some of which were said to be a foot broad. 5th. In h

h

* In the Memoirs of the Pennsylvanian Society.

2

A

2

356

FALLING

METEORS.

G e m a n y , Mr. Zeissing, vicar of Ittetsadt, near Weimar (lat. 50° 59', long. 9° 1' east), perceived, on the 12th of November, between the hours of six and seven in the morning (half-past two at Cumana), some falling-stars which shed a very white light. Soon after, in the direction of south and south-west, luminous rays appeared from four to six feet long; they were reddish, and resembled the luminous track of a sky-rocket. During the morning twilight, between the hours of seven and eight, the sky, in the direction of south-west, was observed from time to time to be brightly illumined by white lightning, running in serpentine lines along the horizon. A t night the cold increased and the barometer rose. It is very probable, that the meteors might have been observed more to the east, in Poland and in Russia.* The distance from Weimar to the Rio Negro is 1800 nautical leagues; and from the Rio Negro to Herrnhut in Greenland, 1300 leagues. Admitting that the same fiery meteors were seen at points so distant from each other, we must suppose that their height was at least 411 leagues.

Near Weimar, the appearance like sky-rockets was observed in the south and south-east; at Cumana, in the east and east-north-east. W e may therefore conclude, that numberless aërolites must have fallen into the sea, between Africa and South America, westward of the Cape Verd Islands.

But since the direction of the bolides was not the same at Labrador and at Cumana, why were they not perceived in the latter place towards the north, as at Cayenne ? W e can scarcely be too cautious on a subject, on which good observations made in very distant places are still wanting. I am rather inclined to think, that the Chayma Indians of Cumana did not see the same bolides as the Portuguese in Brazil and the missionaries in Labrador; but at the same time it cannot be doubted (and this fact appears t o me very remarkable) that in the New World, between the meridians of 46° and 82°, between the equator and 64° north, at the same hour, an * In Paris and in London the sky was cloudy. At Carlsruhe, before dawn, lightning was seen in the north-west and south-east. On the 13th of November a remarkable glare of light was seen at the same place in the south-east.

RAPIDITY OF THEIR MOTION.

357

immense number of bolides and falling-stars were perceived; and that those meteors had everywhere the same brilliancy, throughout a space of 921,000 square leagues.

Astronomers who have lately been directing minute attention to falling-stars and their parallaxes, consider them as meteors belonging to the farthest limits of our atmosphere, between the region of the Aurora Horealis and that of the lightest clouds.* Some have been seen, which had not more than 14,000 toises, or about five leagues of elevation. The highest do not appear to exceed thirty leagues. They are often more than a hundred feet in diameter: and their swiftness is such, that they dart in a few seconds through a space of two leagues. Of some which have been measured, the direction was almost perpendicularly upward, or forming an angle of 50° with the vertical line. This extremely remarkable circumstance has led to the conclusion, that falling-stars are not aerolites which, after having hovered a long time in space, unite on accidentally entering into our atmosphere, and fall towards the earth.† Whatever may be the origin o f t h e s e luminous meteors, it is difficult to conceive an instantaneous inflammation taking place in a region where there is less air than in the vacuum of our air-pumps; and where (at the height of 25,000 toises) the mercury i n the barometer would not rise t o 0 012 of a line. W e have ascertained the uniform mixture of atmospheric air to be about 0 003, only to an elevation of 3000 toises; consequently not beyond the last stratum of fleecy Clouds. It may be admitted that, in the first revolutions of the globe, gaseous substances, which yet remain unknown to us, have risen towards that region through which the falling-stars p a s s ; but accurate experiments, made upon mixtures of gases which have not the same s p e c i f i c gravity, show that there is no reason for supposing a superior stratum the atmosphere entirely different from the inferior strata.

Gaseous substances mingle and penetrate each other on the * According to the observations which I made on the ridge of the Andes, at an elevation of 2700 toises, on the moutons, or little white fleecy clouds, it appeared to me, that their elevation is sometimes not less than 6000 toises above the level of the coast. † M . Chladni, who at first considered falling-stars to be aërolites, subsequently abandoned that idea.

358

FALLING METEORS.

least movement; and a uniformity of their mixture may have taken place in the lapse of ages, unless we believe them to possess a repulsive action of which there is no example in those substances wo can subject to our observations. Farther, if we admit the existence of particular aÍrial fluids in the inaccessible regions of luminous meteors, of falling-stars, bolides, and the Aurora Borealis; how can we conceive why the whole stratum of those fluids does not at once ignite, but that the gaseous emanations, like the clouds, occupy only limited spaces ? How can we suppose an electrical explosion without some vapours collected together, capable of containing unequal charges of electricity, in air, the mean temperature of which is perhaps 25° below the freezing point of the centigrade thermometer, and the rarefaction of which is so considerable, that the compression of the electrical shock could scarcely disengage any beat ? These difficulties would in great part be removed, if the direction of the movoment of falling-stars allowed us to consider them as bodies with a solid nucleus, as cosmic phenomena (belonging to space beyond the limits of our atmosphere), and not as telluric phenomena (belonging to our planet only).

Supposing the meteors of Cumana to have been only at the usual height at which falling-stars in general move, the same meteors were seen above the horizon in places more than 310 leagues distant from each other.* How great a disposition to incandescence must have prevailed on the 12th November, in the higher regions of the atmosphere, to have rendered during four hours myriads of bolides and falling stars visible at the equator, in Greenland, and in Germany!

M. Benzenberg observes, that the same cause which renders the phenomenon more frequent, has also an influence on the large size of the meteors, and the intensity of their light. .

I n Europe, the greatest number o f falling stars are seen on those nights on which very bright ones are mingled with very small ones. The periodical nature o f the phenomenon augments the interest it excites. There are months in which M. Brandes has reckoned in our temperate zone only sixty or eighty falling-stars in one night; and in other months * It was this circumstance that induced Lambert to propose the observation of falling-stars for the determination of terrestrial longitudes.

He considered them to be celestial signals seen at great distances.

THEIR FREQUENCY.

359

their number has risen to two thousand. Whenever one is observed, which has the diameter of Sirius or of Jupiter, we are sure of seeing the brilliant meteor succeeded by a great number of smaller ones. If the falling stars be very numerous during one night, it is probable that they will continue equally so during several weeks. It would seem, that in the higher regions of the atmosphere, near that extreme limit where the centrifugal force is balanced by gravity, there exists at regular periods a particular disposition for the production of bolides,falling-stars, and the Aurora Borealis.* Does the periodical recurrence of this great phenomenon depend upon the state of the atmosphere ? or upon something which the atmosphere receives from without, while the earth advances in the ecliptic ? Of all this we are still as ignorant as mankind were in the days of Anaxagoras.

With respect to the falling-stars themselves, it appears to me, from my own experience, that they are more frequent in the equinoctial regions than in the temperate zone; and more frequent above continents, and near certain coasts, than in the middle of the ocean. Do the radiation of the surface of the globe, and the electric charge of the lower regions of the atmosphere (which varies according to the nature of the soil and the positions of the continents and seas), exert their influence as far as those heights where eternal winter reigns ?

The total absence of even the smallest clouds, at certain seasons, or above some barren plains destitute of vegetation, seems to prove that this influence can be felt as far as live or six thousand toises high.

A phenomenon analogous to that which appeared on the 12th of November at Cumana, was observed thirty years previously on the table-land of the Andes, in a country studded with volcanoes.

In the city of Quito there was seen in one part of the sky, above the volcano of Cayamba, such great numbers of falling-stars, that the mountain was thought to be in flames. This singular sight lasted more than an hour. The people assembled in the plain of Exido, * Ritter, like several others, makes a distinction between bolides mint e d with falling-stars and those luminous meteors which, enveloped in vapour and smoke, explode with great noise, and let fall (chiefly in the day-time) aĂŤrolites. The latter certainly do not belong to our atmosphere.

360

VOYAGE

TO

LA

GUAYRA.

which commands a magnificent view of the highest summits of the Cordilleras. A procession was on the point of setting out from the convent of San Francisco, when it was perceived that the blaze on the horizon was caused by fiery meteors, which ran along the skies in all directions, at the altitude of twelve or thirteen degrees.

CHAPTER X I .

Passage from Cumana to La Guayra.—Morro of New Barcelona.—Cape Codera.—Road from La Guayra to Caracas.

O N the 16th of November, at eight in the evening, we were under sail to proceed along the coast from Cumana to the port of La Guayra, whence the inhabitants of the province of Venezuela export the greater part of their produce.

The passage is only a distance of sixty leagues, and it usually occupies from thirty-six to forty hours. The little coasting vessels are favoured at once by the wind and by the currents, which run with more or less force from east to west, along the coasts of Terra Firma, particularly from cape Paria to the cape of Chichibacoa. The road by land from Cumana to New Barcelona, and thence to Caracas, is nearly in the same state as that in which it was before the discovery of America. The traveller has to contend with the obstacles presented by a miry soil, large scattered rocks, and strong vegetation. H e must sleep in the open air, pass through the valleys of the Unare, the Tuy, and the Capaya, and cross torrents which swell rapidly on account of the proximity of the mountains. To these obstacles must be added the dangers arising from the extreme insalubrity of the country.

T h e very low lands, between the sea-shore and the chain of hills nearest the coast, from the bay of Mochima as far as Coro, are extremely unhealthy. But the last-mentioned town, which is surrounded by an immense wood of thorny cactuses, owes its great salubrity, like Cumana, to its barren soil and the absence of rain.

In returning from Caracas to Cumana, the road by land is

UNEXPLORED

REGIONS.

361

sometimes preferred to the passage by sea, to avoid the adverse current. The postman from Caracas is nine days in performing this journey. W e often saw persons, who had followed him, arrive at Cumana ill of nervous and miasmatic fevers. The tree of which the bark* furnishes a salutary remedy for those fevers, grows in the same valleys, and upon the edge of the same forests which send forth the pernicious exhalations. M . Bonpland recognised the cuspare in the vegetation of the gulf of Santa FĂŠ, situated between the ports of Cumana and Barcelona. The sickly traveller may perchance repose in a cottage, the inhabitants of which are ignorant of the febrifuge qualities of the trees that shade the surrounding valleys.

Having proceeded b y sea from Cumana to La Guayra, we intended to take up our abode in the town of Caracas, till the end of the rainy season. Prom Caracas we proposed to direct our course across the great plains or llanos, to the Missions of the Orinoco; to go up that vast river, to the south of the cataracts, as far as the Rio Negro and the frontiers of Brazil; and thence to return to Cumana b y the capital of Spanish Guiana, commonly called, on account of its situation, Angostura, or the Strait. W e could not determine the time we might require to accomplish a tour of seven hundred leagues, more than two-thirds of that distance having to be traversed in boats. The only parts of the Orinoco known on the coasts are those near its mouth. N o commercial intercourse is kept up with the Missions. The whole of the country beyond the llanos is unknown to the inhabitants of Cumana and Caracas. Some think that the plains of Calabozo, covered with turf, stretch eight hundred leagues southward, communicating with the Steppes or Pampas of Buenos Ayres ; others, recalling to mind the great mortality which prevailed among the troops of Iturriaga and Solano, during their expedition to the Orinoco, consider the whole country, south of the cataracts of Atures, as extremely pernicious to health. In a region where travelling is so uncommon, people seem to feel a pleasure in exaggerating to strangers the difficulties arising from the climate, the wild animals, and the Indians. Nevertheless we persisted in the project we * Cortex AngosturĂŚ of our pharmacopĂŚias, the bark o f the Bonplandia trifoliata.

362

JUAN

GONZALES.

had formed. W o could rely upon the interest and solicitude of the governor of Cumana, Don Vicente Emparan, a s well as on the recommendations of the Franciscan monks, who are in reality masters of the shores of the Orinoco.

Fortunately for us, one of those monks, Juan Gonzales, was at that time in Cumana. This young monk, who was only a lay-brother, was highly intelligent, and full of spirit and courage. He had the misfortune shortly after his arrival on the coast to displease his superiors, upon the election of a new director of the Missions of Piritu, which is a period of great agitation in the convent of New Barcelona. The triumphant party exercised a general retaliation, from which the lay-brother could not escape. H e was sent to Esmeralda, the last Mission of the Upper Orinoco, famous for the vast quantity of noxious insects with which the air is continually filled. Fray Juan Gonzales was thoroughly acquainted with the forests which extend from the cataracts towards the sources of the Orinoco. Another revolution in the republican government of the monks had some years before brought him to the coast, where he enjoyed (and most justly) the esteem of his superiors. H e confirmed us in our desire of examining the much-disputed bifurcation of the Orinoco.

H e gave us useful advice for the preservation of our health, in climates where he had himself suffered long from intermitting fevers.

We had the satisfaction of finding Fray Juan Gonzales at New Barcelona, on our return from the Rio N e g r o .

Intending to go from the Havannah to Cadiz, he obligingly offered to take charge of part of our herbals, and our insects of the Orinoco ; but these collections were unfortunately lost with himself at sea. This excellent young man, who was much attached to us, and whose zeal and courage might have rendered him very serviceable to the missions of his order, perished in a storm on the coast of

Africa, in 1801.

The boat which conveyed us from Cumana to La Guayra, was one o f those e m p l o y e d in trading between the

coasts

and the West India Islands. They are thirty feet long, and not more than three feet high at the gunwale; they have no decks, and their burthen is generally from two hundred to two hundred and fifty quintals. Although the sea is extremely rough from Cape Codera to La Guayra, and although

NATIVE BOATMEN.

363

the boats have an enormous triangular sail, somewhat dangerous in those gusts which issue from the mountain-passes, no instance has occurred during thirty years, of one of these boats being lost in the passage from Cumana to the coast of Caracas. The skill of the Guaiqueria pilots is so great, that accidents are very rare, even in the frequent trips they make from Cumana to Guadaloupe, or the Danish islands, which are surrounded with breakers. These voyages of 120 or 150 leagues, in an open sea, out of sight of land, are performed in boats without decks, like those of the ancients, without observations of the meridian altitude of the sun, without charts, and generally without a compass. The Indian pilot directs his course at night by the pole-star, and in the daytime by the sun and the wind. I have seen Guaiqueries and pilots of the Zambo caste, who could find the pole-star by the direction of the pointers a and :B of the Great Bear, and they seemed to me to steer less from the view of the pole-star itself, than from the line drawn through these stars. It is surprising, that at the first sight of land, they can find the island of Guadaloupe, Santa Cruz, or Porto Rico; but the compensation of the errors of their course is not always equally fortunate. The boats, if they fall to leeward in making land, beat up with great difficulty to the eastward, against the wind and the current.

W e descended rapidly the little river Manzanares, the windings of which are marked by cocoa-trees, as the rivers of Europe are sometimes bordered by poplars and old willows. On the adjacent arid land, the thorny bushes, on which by day nothing is visible but dust, glitter during the night with thousands of luminous sparks. The number of phosphorescent insects augments in the stormy season. The traveller in the equinoctial regions is never weary of admiring the effect of those reddish and moveable fires, which, being reflected by limpid water, blend their radiance with that of the starry vault of heaven.

W e quitted the shore of Cumana as if it had long been our home. This was the first land we had trodden in a zone, towards which my thoughts had been directed from earliest youth. There is a powerful charm in the impression produced by the scenery and climate of these regions; and after an abode of a few months we seemed to have lived there

364

TROPICAL SCENERY.

during a long succession of years. In Europe, the inhabitant of the north feels an almost similar emotion, when he quits even after a short abode the shores of the Bay of Naples, the delicious country between Tivoli and the lake of Nemi, or the wild and majestic scenery of the Upper Alps and the Pyrenees.

Vol everywhere in the temperate zone, the effects of vegetable physiognomy afford little contrast.

The firs and the oaks which crown the mountains of Sweden have a certain family air in common with those which adorn Greece and Italy. Between the tropics, on the contrary, in the lower regions of both Indies, everything in nature appears new and marvellous. In the open plains and amid the gloom of forests, almost all the remembrances of Europe are effaced ; for it is vegetation that determines the character of a landscape, and acts upon the imagination by its mass, the contrast of its forms, and the glow of its colours. In proportion as impressions are powerful and new, they weaken antecedent impressions, and their force imparts to them the character of duration. I appeal to those who, more sensible to the beauties of nature than to the charms of society, have long resided in the torrid zone, How dear, how memorable during life, is the land on which they first disembarked! A vague desire to revisit that spot remains rooted in their minds to the most advanced age.

Cumana and its dusty soil are still more frequently present to my imigination, than all the wonders of the Cordilleras.

Beneath the bright shy of the south, the light, and the magic of the aĂŤrial hues, embellish a land almost destitute of vegetation. The sun does not merely enlighten, it colours the objects, and wraps them in a thin vapour, which, without changing the transparency o f the air, renders its tints more harmonious, softens the effects of the light, and diffuses over nature a placid calm, which is reflected in our souls. To explain this vivid impression which the aspect of the scenery in the two Indies produces, even on coasts but thinly wooded, it is sufficient to recollect that the beauty of the sky augments from Naples to the equator, almost as much as from Provence to the south of Italy.

We passed at high water the bar formed at the mouth of the little river Manzanares. The evening breeze gently swelled the waves in the gulf of Cariaco. The moon had

PHOSPHORESCENCE OF THE SEA.

365

not risen, but that part of the milky way which extends from the feet of the Centaur towards the constellation of Sagittarius, seemed to pour a silvery light over the surface of the ocean. The white rock, crowned by the castle of San Antonio, appeared from time to time between the high tops of the cocoa-trees which border the shore; and we soon recognized the coasts only by the scattered lights of the Guaiqueria fishermen.

W e sailed at first to N. N. W . , approaching the peninsula of Araya; we then ran thirty miles to W . and W . S . W .

A s we advanced towards the shoal that surrounds Cape Arenas and stretches as far as the petroleum springs of Maniquarez, we enjoyed one of those varied sights which the great phosphorescence of the sea so often displays in those climates.

Bands of porpoises followed our bark.

Fifteen or sixteen of these animals swam at equal distances from each other. When turning on their backs, they struck the surface of the water with their broad tails ; they diffused a brilliant light, which seemed like flames issuing from the depth of the ocean.* Each band of porpoises, ploughing the surface of the waters, left behind it a track of light, the more striking as the rest of the sea was not phosphorescent.

As the motion of an oar, and the track of the bark, produced on that night but feeble sparks, it is natural to suppose that the vivid phosphorescence caused by the porpoises was owing not only to the stroke of their tads, but also to the gelatinous matter that envelopes their bodies, and is detached by the shock of the waves.

W e found ourselves at midnight between some barren and rocky islands, which uprise like bastions in the middle of the sea, and form the group of the Caracas and Chimanas.† The moon was above the horizon, and lighted up these cleft rocks which are bare of vegetation and of fantastic aspect.

The sea here forms a sort of bay, a slight inward curve of the land between Cumana and Capo Codera. The islets of Picua, Picuita, Caracas, and Boracha, appear like fragments of the ancient coast, which stretches from Bordones in the same direction east and west. The gulfs of Mochima and Santa Fé, which will no doubt one day become frequented * See Views of Nature, (Bohn's edition,) p. 246. † There are three of the Caracas islands and eight of the Chimanas.

366

THE

CARACAS

ISLANDS.

ports, lie behind those little islands. The rents in the land, the fracture and dip of the strata, all here denote the effects of a great revolution: possibly that which clove asunder the chain of the primitive mountains, and separated the micaschist of Araya and the island of Margareta from the gneiss of Cape Codera.

Several of the islands are visible at Cumana, from the terraces of the houses, and they produce, according to the superposition of layers of air more or loss heated, the most singular effects of suspension and mirage.

The height of the rocks does not probably exceed one hundred and fifty toises ; but at night, when lighted by the moon, they seem to be of a very considerable elevation.

It may appear extraordinary, to find the Caracas Islands so distant from the city of that name, opposite the coast of the Cumanagotos; but the denomination of Caracas denoted at the beginning of the Conquest, not a particular spot, but a tribe of Indians, neighbours of the Tecs, the Taramaynas, and the Chagaragates. As we came very near this group of mountainous islands, we were becalmed; and at sunrise, small currents drifted us toward Boracha, the largest of them. As the rocks rise nearly perpendicular, the shore is abrupt; and in a subsequent voyage I saw frigates at anchor almost touching the land. The temperature of the atmosphere became sensibly higher whilst we were sailing among the islands of this little archipelago The rocks, heated during the day, throw out at night, by radiation, a part of the heat absorbed. As the sun arose on the horizon, the rugged mountains projected their vast shadows on the surface of the ocean. The flamingoes began to fish in places where they found in a creek calcareous rocks bordered by a narrow beach. All these islands are now entirely uninhabited; but upon one of the Caracas are found wild goats of large size, brown, and extremely swift. Our Indian pilot assured us that their flesh has an excellent flavour. Thirty years ago a family of whites settled on this island, where they cultivated maize and cassava. The father alone survived his children.

As his wealth increased, he purchased two black slaves; and by these slaves he was murdered. The goats became wild, but the cultivated plants perished. Maize in America, like wheat in Europe, connected with man since his first migrations, appears to be preserved only by his care. We some-

PORT OP BARCELONA.

367

times see these nutritive gramina disseminate themselves; but when left to nature the birds prevent their reproduction by destroying the seeds.

We anchored for some hours in the road of New Barcelona, at the mouth of the river Neveri, of which the Indian (Cumanagoto) name is Enipiricuar. This river is full of crocoddes, which sometimes extend their excursions into the open sea, especially in calm weather. They are of the species common in the Orinoco, and bear so much resemblance to the crocodile of Egypt, that they have long been confounded together. It may easily be conceived that an animal, the body of which is surrounded with a kind of armour, must be nearly indifferent to the saltness of the water.

Pigafetta relates in his journal recently published at Milan that he saw, on the shores of the island of Borneo, crocodiles which inhabit alike land and sea. These facts must be interesting to geologists, since attention has been fixed on the fresh-water formations, and the curious mixture of marine and fluviatile petrifactions sometimes observed in certain very recent rocks.

The port of Barcelona has maintained a very active commerce since 1795. From Barcelona is exported most of the produce of those vast steppes which extend from the south side of the chain of the coast as far as the Orinoco, and in which cattle of every kind are almost as abundant as in the Pampas of Buenos Ayres. The commercial industry of these countries depends on the demand in the West India Islands for salted provision, oxen, mules, and horses. The coasts of Terra Firma being opposite to the island of Cuba, at a distance of fifteen or eighteen days' sail, the merchants of the Havannah prefer, especially in time of peace, obtaining their provision from the port of Barcelona, to the risk of a long voyage in another hemisphere to the mouth of the Rio de la Blata. The situation of Barcelona is singularly advantageous for the trade in cattle. The animals have only three days' journey from the llanos to the port, while it requires eight or nine days to reach Cumana, on account of the chain of mountains of the Brigantine and the Imposible.

Having landed on the right bank of the Neveri, we ascended to a little fort called El Morn) de Barcelona, situated at the elevation of sixty or seventy toises above the level of

368

EL MORBO DE BARCELONA.

the sea. The Morro is a calcareous rock which has been lately fortified.

The view from the summit of the Morro is not without beauty. The rocky island of Boracha lies on the east, the lofty promontory of Unare is on the west, and below are seen the mouth of the river Neveri, and the arid shores on which the crocodiles come to sleep in the sun. Notwithstanding the extreme heat of the air, for the thermometer, exposed to the reflection of the white calcareous rock, rose to 38°, we traversed the whole of the eminence. A fortunate chance led us to observe some very curious geological phenomena, which we again met with in the Cordilleras of Mexico. The limestone of Barcelona has a dull, even, or conchoidal fracture, with very flat cavities. It is divided into very thin strata, and exhibits loss analogy with the limestone of Cumanacoa, than with that of Caripe, forming the cavern of the Guacharo. It is traversed by banks of schistose jasper,* black, with a conchoidal fracture, and breaking into fragments of a parallelopipedal figure. This fossil does not exhibit those little streaks of quartz so common in the Lydian stone. I t is found decomposed at its surface into a yellowish grey crust, and it does not act upon the magnet.

Its edges, a little translucid, give it some resemblance to the hornstone, so common in secondary limestones.† It is remarkable that we find the schistose jasper which in Europe characterizes the transition r o c k s , ‡in a limestone having great analogy with that of Jura. In the study of formations, which is the great end of geognosv, the knowledge acquired in the old and new worlds should be made to furnish reciprocal aid to each other. It appears that these black strata are found also in the calcareous mountains of the island of Boracha.§ Another jasper, that known by the name of the Egyptian pebble, was found by M . Bonpland near the Indian village of Curacatiche or * Kieselschiefer of Werner. † In Switzerland, the hornstone passing into common jasper is found in kidney-stones, and in layers both in the Alpine and Jura limestone, especially in the former. ‡ The transition-limestone and schist. § W e saw some of it as ballast, in a fishing-boat at Punta Araya. Its fragments might have been mistaken for basalt.

369

THE PIRITU ISLANDS.

Curacaguitiche, fifteen leagues south of the Morro of Barcelona, when, on our return from the Orinoco, we crossed the llanos, and approached the mountains on the coast.

This stone presented yellowish concentric lines and bands, on a reddish brown ground. It appeared to me that the round pieces of Egyptian jasper belonged also to the Barcelona limestone. Yet, according to M. Cordier, the fine pebbles of Suez owe their origin to a breccia formation, or siliceous agglomerate.

A t the moment of our setting sail, on the 19th of N o vember, at noon, I took some altitudes of the moon, to determine the longitude of the Morro.

The difference of meridian between Cumana and the town of Barcelona, where I made a great number of astronomical observations in 1800, is 34' 48". I found the dip of the needle 42 20째: the intensity of the forces was equal to 224 oscillations.

From the Morro of Barcelona to Cape Codera, the land becomes low, as it recedes southward; and the soundings extend to the distance of three miles. Beyond this we find the bottom at forty-five or fifty fathoms. The temperature of the sea at its surface was 2 5 9 째 ; but when we were passing through the narrow channel which separates the two Piritu Islands, in three fathoms water, the thermometer was only 24'5째. The difference would perhaps be greater, if the current, which runs rapidly westward, stirred up deeper water; and if, in a pass of such small width, the land did not contribute to raise the temperature of the sea. The Piritu Islands resemble those shoals which become visible when the tide falls. They do not rise more than eight or nine inches above the mean height of the sea.

Their surface is smooth, and covered with grass.

We might have thought we were gazing on some of our own northern meadows. The disk of the setting sun appeared like a globe of fire suspended over the savannah; and its last rays, as they swept the earth, illumined the grass, which was at the same time agitated by the evening breeze. I n the low and humid parts of the equinoctial zone, even when the gramineous plants and reeds present the aspect of a meadow, a rich accessory of the picture is usually wanting ; I allude to that variety of wild flowers, which, VOL. I.

2 R

870

APPROACH TO CAPE CODERA.

scarcely rising above the grass, seem as it were, to lie upon a smooth bed of verdure. Within the tropics, the strength and luxury of vegetation give such a development to plants, that the smallest of the dicotyledonous family become shrubs. It would seem as if the liliaceous plants, mingling with the gramina, assumed the place of the flowers of our meadows. Their form is indeed striking; they dazzle by the variety and splendour of their colours; but being too high above the soil, they disturb that harmonious proportion which characterizes the plants of our European meadows. Nature has in every zone stamped on the landscape; the peculiar type of beauty proper to the locality.

W e must not be surprised that fertile islands, so near Terra Firma, are not now inhabited. It was only at the early period of the discovery, and whilst the Caribbees, Chaymas, and Cumanagotos were slid masters of the coast, that the Spaniards formed settlements at Cubagua and Margareta. When the natives were subdued, or driven southward in the direction of the savannahs, the preference was given to settlements on the continent, where there was a choice of land, and where there wen; Indians, who might be treated like beasts of burden. Had the little islands of Tortuga, Blanquilla, and Orchilla been situated in the group of the Antilles, they would not have remained without traces of cultivation.

Vessels of heavy burthen pass between the main land and the most southern of the Piritu Islands. Being very low, their northern point is dreaded by pilots who near the coast in those latitudes. When we found ourselves to westward of the Morro of Barcelona, and the mouth of the river Unare, the sea, till then calm, became agitated and rough in proportion as we approached Cape Codera.

The influence of that vast promontory is felt from afar, in that part of the Caribbean Sea. The length of the passage from Cumana to La Guayra depends on the degree of ease or difficulty with which Cape Codera can be doubled. Beyond this cape the sea constantly runs so high, that we can scarcely believe we are near a coast where (from the point of Paria as far as Cape San Roman) a gale of wind is never known. On the 20th of November at sunrise we were so far advanced, that we might expect

371

MANGROVE THICKETS.

to double the cape in a few hours. W e hoped to reach La Guayra the same day; but our Indian pilot being afraid of the privateers who were near that port, thought it would be prudent to make for land, and anchor in the little harbour of Higuerote, which we had already passed, and await the shelter of night to proceed on our voyage.

On the 20th of November at nine in the morning we were at anchor in the bay just mentioned, situated westward of the mouth of the Rio Capaya. W e found there neither village nor farm, but merely two or three huts, inhabited

by Mestizo fishermen. Their livid hue, and the meagre condition of their children, sufficed to remind us that this spot is one of the most unhealthy of the whole coast. The sea has so little depth along these shores, that even with the smallest harks it is impossible to reach the shore without wading through the water. The forests come down nearly to the beach, which is covered with thickets of mangroves, avicennias, manchineel-trees, and that species of suriana which the natives call romero de la mar.* To these thickets, and particularly to the exhalations of the mangroves, the extreme insalubrity of the air is attributed here, as in other places in both Indies. On quitting the boats, and whilst we Were yet fifteen or twenty toises distant from land, we perceived a faint and sickly smell, which reminded me of that diffused through the galleries of deserted mines, where the lights begin to be extinguished, and the timber is covered with flocculent byssus. The temperature of the air rose to 34째, heated by the reverberation from the white sands which form a line between the mangroves and the great trees of the forest. As the shore descends with a gentle slope, small tides are sufficient alternately to cover and uncover the roots and part of the trunks of the mangroves.

It is doubtless whilst the sun heats the humid wood, and causes the fermentation, as it were, of the ground, of the remains of dead leaves and of the molluscs enveloped in the drift of floating seaweed, that those deleterious gases are formed, which escape our researches. W e observed that the seaWater, along the whole coast, acquired a yellowish brown tint, wherever it came into contact with the mangrove trees. * Suriana maritima.

2

B

2

372

EXPERIMENTS

ON

MIASMA.

Struck with this phenomenon, I gathered at Higuerote a considerable quantity of branches and roots, for the purpose of making some experiments on the infusion of the mangrove, on my arrival at Caracas. The infusion in warm water had a brown colour and an astringent taste. It contained a mixture of extractive matter and tannin. The rhizophora, the misletoe, the cornel-tree, in short, all the plants which belong to the natural families of the lorantheous and the caprifoliaceous plants, have the same properties. The infusion of mangrove-wood, kept in contact with atmospheric air under a glass jar for twelve days, was not sensibly deteriorated in purity. A little blackish flocculent sediment was formed, but it was attended by no sensible absorption of oxygen. The wood and roots of the mangrove placed under water were exposed to the rays of the sun. I tried to imitate the daily operations of nature on the coasts at the rise of the tide. Bubbles of air were disengaged, and at the expiration of ten days they formed a volume of thirtythree cubic inches. They were a mixture of azotic gas and carbonic acid. Nitrous gas scarcely indicated the presence of oxygen.* Lastly, I set the wood and the roots of the mangrove thoroughly wetted, to act on a given volume of atmospheric air in a phial with a ground-glass stopple. The whole of the oxygen disappeared; and, far from being superseded by carbonic acid, lime-water indicated only 0 02. There was even a dimunition of the volume of air, more than correspondent with the oxygen absorbed. These slight experiments led me to conclude that it is the moistened bark and wood which act upon the atmosphere in the forests of mangrove-trees, and not the water strongly tinged with yellow, forming a distinct band along the coasts. In pursuing the different stages of the decomposition of the ligneous matter, I observed no appearance of a disengagement of sulphuretted hydrogen, to which many travellers attribute the smell perceived amidst mangroves. The decomposition of the earthy and alkaline sulphates, and their transition to the state of sulphurets, may no doubt favour this disengagement in many littoral and marine plaids; for instance, in the fuci: but I am rather inclined to think that the rhizophora, the avicen* In a hundred parts there were eighty-four of nitrogen, fifteen of carbonic acid gas that the water had not absorbed, and one of oxygen.

GROWTH OF THE MANGROVE.

373

nia, and the conocarpus, augment the insalubrity of the air by the animal matter which they contain conjointly with tannin. These shrubs belong to the three natural families of the Lorantheæ, the Combretaceæ, and the Pyrenaceæ, in which the astringent principle abounds; this principle accompanies gelatin, even in the bark of beech, alder, and nut-trees.

Moreover, a thick wood spreading over marshy grounds would diffuse noxious exhalations in the atmosphere, even though that wood were composed of trees possessing in themselves no deleterious properties. Wherever mangroves grow on the sea-shore, the beach is covered with infinite numbers of molluscs and insects. These animals love shade and faint light, and they find themselves sheltered from the shock of the waves amid the scaffolding of thick and intertwining roots, which rises like lattice-work above the surface of the waters. Shell-fish cling to this lattice; crabs nestle in the hollow trunks; and the seaweeds, drifted to the coast by the winds and tides, remain suspended on the branches which incline towards the earth. Thus, maritime forests, by the accumulation of a slimy mud between the roots of the trees, increase the extent of land. Put whilst these forests gain on the sea, they do not enlarge their own dimensions; on the contrary, their progress is the cause of their destruction. Mangroves, and other plants with which they live constantly in society, perish in proportion as the ground dries and they are no longer bathed with salt water. Their old trunks, covered with shells, and half-buried in the sand, denote, after the lapse of ages, the path they have followed in their migrations, and the limits of the land which they have Wrested from the ocean.

The bay of Higuerote is favourably situated for examining Cape Codera, which is there seen in its full extent seven miles distant. This promontory is more remarkable for its size than for its elevation, being only about two hundred toises high. It is perpendicular on the north-west and east. In these grand profiles the dip of the strata appears to be distinguishable. Judging from the fragments of rock found along the coast, and from the hills near Higuerote, Cape Codera is not composed of granite with a granular texture, but of a real gneiss with a foliated texture. Its laminæ are

374

DEPARTURE FROM HIGUEROTE.

very broad and sometimes sinuous.* They contain large nodules of reddish feldspar and but little quartz. The mica is found in superposed lamellæ, not isolated. The strata nearest the bay were in the direction of 60° N.E., and dipped 80° to N . W . These relations of direction and of dip are the same at the great mountain of the Silla, near Caracas, and to the east of Maniquarez, in the isthmus of Araya. They seem to prove that the primitive chain of that isthmus, after having been ruptured or swallowed up by the sea along a space of thirty-five leagues,† appears anew in Cape Codera, and continues westward as a chain of the coast.

I was assured that, in the interior of the earth, south of Higuerote, limestone formations are found. The gneiss did not act upon the magnetic needle; yet along the coast, which forms a cove near Cape Codera, and which is covered with a line forest, I saw magnetic sand mixed with spangles of mica, deposited by the sea. This phenomenon occurs again near the port of La Guayra. Possibly it may denote the existence of some strata of hornblende-schist covered by the waters, in which schist the sand is disseminated.

Cape Codera forms on the north an immense spherical segment.

A shallow which stretches along its fool is known

to navigators by the name o f the points of Tutumo and of San Francisco.

The road by land from Higuerote to Caracas, runs through a wild and humid tract of country, by the Montana of Capaya, north of Caucagua, and the valley of Rio Guatira and Guarenas. Some of our fellow-travellers determined on taking this road, and M. Bonpland also preferred it, notwithstanding the continual rains and the overflowing of the rivers. It afforded him the opportunity o f making a rich collection of new plants.‡For my part, I continued alone with the Guaiqueria pilot the voyage by sea; for I thought it hazardous to lose sight of the instruments which we were to make use of on the banks of the Orinoco.

We set sail at night-fall. The wind was unfavourable, and we doubled Cape Codera with difficulty. The surges were * Dickflasriger gneiss. † Between the meridians of Maniquarez and Higuerote. ‡ Bauhinia ferruginea, Brownea racemosa, Bred. Inga hymenæifolia I. curiepensis (which Willdenouw has called by mistake I. caripensis), & c .

SCENERY OF THE COAST.

375

short, and often broke one upon another. The sea ran the higher, owing to the wind being contrary to the current, till after midnight. The general motion of the waters within the tropics towards the west is felt strongly on the coast during two-thirds of the year. In the months of September, October, and November, the current often flows eastward for fifteen or twenty days in succession; and vessels on their way from Guayra to Porto Cabello have sometimes been unable to stem the current which runs from west to east, although they have had the wind astern. The cause of these anomalies is not yet discovered. The pilots think they are the effect of gales of wind from the north-west in the gulf of Mexico.

On the 21st of November, at sunrise, we were to the west of Cape Codera, opposite Curuao. The coast is rocky and very elevated, the scenery at once wild and picturesque W e were sufficiently near land to distinguish scattered huts surrounded by cocoa-trees, and masses of vegetation, which stood out from the dark ground of the rocks. The mountains arc everywhere perpendicular, and three or four thousand feet high; their sides cast broad and deep shadows upon the humid land, which stretches out to the sea, glowing with the freshest verdure. This shore produces most of those fruits of the hot regions, which are seen in such great abundance in the markets of the Caracas. The fields cultivated with sugar-cane and maize, between Camburi and Niguatar, stretch through narrow valleys, looking like crevices o r clefts in the r o c k s : and

penetrated by the rays of

the sun, then above the horizon, they presented the most singular contrasts of light and shade.

The mountain of Niguatar and the Silla of Caracas are the loftiest summits of this littoral chain. The first almost reaches the height of Canigou; it seems as if the Pyrenees or the Alps, stripped of their snows, had risen from the bosom of the ocean; so much more stupendous do mountains appear when viewed for the first time from the sea. Near Caravalleda, the cultivated lands enlarge; we find hills with gentle declivities, and the vegetation rises to a great height. The sugar-cane is here cultivated, and the monks of La Merced have a plantation with two hundred slaves.

This spot was formerly extremely subject to fever; and it is

376

ARRIVAL AT LA GUAYRA.

said that the air has acquired salubrity since trees have been planted round a small lake, the emanations of which were dreaded, and which is now less exposed to the ardour of the sun. To the west of Caravalleda, a wall of bare rock again projects forward in the direction of the sea, but it has little extent. After having passed it, we immediately discovered the pleasantly situated village of Macuto; the black rocks of La Guayra, studded with batteries rising in tiers one over another; and in the misty distance, Cabo Blanco, a long promontory with conical summits, and of dazzling whiteness.

Cocoa-trees border the shore, and give it, under that burning sky, an appearance of fertility.

I landed in the port of La Guayra, and the same evening made; preparations for transporting my instruments to Caracas. Having been recommended not to sleep in the town, where the yellow fever had been raging only a few weeks previously, I fixed my lodging in a house on a little hill, above the village of Maiquetia, a place more exposed to fresh winds than La Guayra.

I reached Caracas on the 21st of November, four days sooner than M. Bonpland, who, with the other travellers on the land journey, had suffered greatly from the rain and the inundations of the torrents, between Capaya and Curiepe.

Before proceeding further, I will here subjoin a description of La Guayra, and the extraordinary road which leads from thence to the town of Caracas, adding thereto all the observations made by M. Bonpland and myself, in an excursion to Cabo Blanco about the end of .January 1 8 0 0 .

La Guayra is rather a roadstead than a port. The sea is constantly agitated, and ships suffer at once by the violence of the wind, the tideways, and the bad anchorage. The lading is taken in with difficulty, and the swell prevents the embarkation of mules here, as at New Barcelona and Porto Cabello. The free mulattoes and negroes, who carry the cacao on board the shins, are a class of men remarkable for muscular strength. They wade up to their waists through the water; and it is remarkable that they are never attacked by the sharks, so common in this harbour. This fact seems connected with what I have often observed within the tropics, with respect to other classes of animals which live in society, for instance monkeys and crocodiles. In the Mis-

SITUATION OF THE TOWN.

377

sions of the Orinoco, and on the banks of the river Amazon, the Indians, who catch monkeys to sell them, know very well that they can easily succeed in taming those which inhabit certain islands; while monkeys of the same species, caught on the neighbouring continent, die of terror or rage when they find themselves in the power of man. The crocodiles of one lake in the llanos are cowardly, and flee even when in the water; whilst those of another lake will attack with extreme intrepidity. It would be difficult to explain this difference of disposition and habits, by the mere aspect of the respective localities. The sharks of the port of La Guayra seem to furnish an analogous example. They are dangerous and blood-thirsty at the island opposite the coast of Caracas, at the Roques, at Bonayre, and at Curassao; while they forbear to attack persons swimming in the ports of La Guayra and Santa Martha. The natives, who like the ignorant mass of people in every country, in seeking the explanation of natural phenomena, always have recourse to the marvellous, affirm that in the ports just mentioned, a bishop gave his benediction to the sharks.

The situation of La Guayra is very singular, and can only be compared to that of Santa Cruz in Teneriffe. The chain of mountains which separates the port from the high valley of Caracas, descends almost directly into the sea; and the houses of the town are backed by a wall of steep rocks.

There scarcely remains one hundred or one hundred and forty toises breadth of flat ground between the wall and the ocean. The town has six or eight thousand inhabitants, and contains only two streets, running parallel with each other east and west. It is commanded by the battery of Cerro Colorado ; and its fortifications along the sea-shore are well disposed, and kept in repair. The aspect of this place has in it something solitary and gloomy; we seemed not to be on a continent, covered with vast forests, but on a rocky island, destitute of vegetation. With the exception of Cabo Blanco and the cocoa-trees of Maiquetia, no view meets the eye but that of the horizon, the sea, and the azure vault of heaven.

The heat is excessive during the day, and most frequently during the night. The climate of La Guayra is justly considered to be hotter than that of Cumana, Porto Cabello, and Coro, because the sea-breeze is less felt, and the air is

378

ATMOSPHERIC

HEAT.

heated by the radiant caloric which the perpendicular rocks emit from the time the sun sets. The examination of the thermometric observations made during nine months at La Guayra by an eminent physician, enabled me to compare the climate of this port, with those of Cumana, of the Havannah, and of Vera Cruz. This comparison is the more interesting, as it furnishes an inexhaustible subject of conversation in the Spanish colonies, and among the mariners who frequent those latitudes. As nothing is more deceiving in such matters than the testimony of the senses, we can judge of the difference of climates only by numerical calculations.

The four places of which we have been speaking are considered as the hottest on the shores of the New World. A comparison of them may servo to confirm what- w e have several times observed, that it is generally the duration of a high temperature, and not the excess of heat, or its absolute quantity, which occasions the sufferings of the inhabitants of the torrid zone.

A series of thermometric observations shows, that La Guayra is one of the hottest places on the earth; that the quantity of heat which it receives in the course of a year is a little greater than that felt at Cumana; but that in the months of November, December, and January (at equal distance from the two passages of the sun through the zenith of the town), the atmosphere cools more at La Guayra. May not this cooling, much slighter than that which is felt almost at the same time at Vera Cruz and at the Havannah, be the effect of the more westerly position of La Guayra? The aĂŤrial ocean, which appears to form only one mass, is agitated by currents, the limits of which are fixed by immutable laws; and its temperature is variously modified by the configuration of the lands and seas by which it is sustained. It may be subdivided into several basins, which overflow into each other, and of which the most agitated (for instance, that over the gulf of Mexico, or between the sierra of Santa Martha and the gulf of Darien) have a powerful influence on the refrigeration and the motion of the neighbouring columns of air. The north winds sometimes cause influxes and counter-currents in the south-west part of the Caribbean Sea, which seem, during particular months, to diminish the heat as far as Terra Firma.

THE YELLOW FEVER.

379

At the time of my abode at La Guayra, the yellow fever, or calentura amarilla, had been known only two years ; and the mortality it occasioned had not been very great, because the confluence of strangers on the coast of Caracas was less considerable than at the Havannah or Vera Cruz. A few individuals, even Creoles and mulattoes, were sometimes carried off suddenly by certain irregular remittent fevers; which, from being complicated with bilious appearances, hĂŚmorrhages, and other symptoms equally alarming, appeared to have some analogy with the yellow fever. The victims of these maladies were generally men employed in the hard labour of cutting wood in the forests, for instance, in the neighbourhood of the little port of Carupano, or the gulf of Santa FĂŠ, west of Cumana. Their death often alarmed the unacclimated Europeans, in towns usually regarded as peculiarly healthy; but the seeds of the sporadic malady were propagated no farther. On the coast of Terra Firma, the real typhus of America, which is known by the names vomito prieto (black vomit) and yellow fever, and which must be considered as a morbid affection sui generis, was known only at Porto Cabello, at Carthagena, and at Santa Martha, where Gastelbondo observed and described it in 1729. The Spaniards recently disembarked, and the inhabitants of the valley of Caracas, were not then afraid to reside at La Guayra.

They complained only of the oppressive heat which prevailed during a great part of the year. If they exposed themselves to the immediate action of the sun, they dreaded at most only those attacks of inflammation of the skin or eyes, which are felt everywhere in the torrid zone, and are often accompanied by a febrile affection and congestion in the head. Many individuals preferred the ardent but uniform climate of La Guayra to the cool but extremely variable climate of Caracas; and scarcely any mention was made of the insalubrity of the former port.

Since the year 1797 everything has changed. Commerce being thrown open to other vessels besides those of the mother country, seamen born in colder parts of Europe than Spain, and consequently more susceptible to the climate of the torrid zone, began to frequent La Guayra. The yellow fever broke out. North Americans, seized with the typhus, were received in the Spanish hospitals ; and it was

380

CAUSES

OF F E B R I L E

DISEASE.

affirmed that they had imported the contagion, and that the disease had appeared on board a brig from Philadelphia, even before the vessel had entered the roads of La Guayra. The captain of the brig denied the fact; and asserted that, far from having introduced the malady, his crew had caught it in the port. W e know from what happened at Cadiz in 1800, how difficult it is to elucidate facts, when their uncertainty serves to favour theories diametrically opposite one to another.

The more enlightened inhabitants of Caracas and La Guayra, divided in opinion, like the physicians of Europe and the United States, on the question of the contagion o f yellow fever, cited the instance

of the American vessel; some for the purpose of proving that the typhus had come from abroad, and others, to show that it had taken birth in the country itself. Those who advocated the latter opinion, admitted that an extraordinary alteration had been caused in the constitution of the atmosphere by the overflowings of the Rio de La Guayra.

This torrent, which in general is not ten inches deep, was swelled after sixty hours' rain in the mountains, in so extraordinary a manner, that it bore down trunks of trees and masses of rock of considerable size. During this flood the waters were from thirty to forty feet in breadth, and from eight to ten feet deep. It was supposed that, issuing from some subterranean basin, formed b y successive infiltrations, they had flowed into the recently cleared arable lands. Many houses were carried away by the torrent ; and the inundation became the more dangerous for the stores, in consequence of the gate of the town, which could alone afford an outlet to the waters, being accidentally closed.

It was necessary to make a breach in the wall on the sea-side. More than thirty persons perished, and the damage was computed at half a million of piastres.

The stagnant water, which infected the stores, the cellars, and the d u n g e o n s o f the public prison, no doubt, diffused

miasms in the air, which, as a predisposing cause, may have accelerated the development of the yellow fever; but I believe that the inundation of the Rio de la Guayra was no more the primary cause, than the overflowings of the Guadalquivir, the Xenil, and the Gual-Medina, were at Seville, at Ecija, and at Malaga, the primary causes o f the fatal epi-

LIMITS AND SPREAD OF FEVERS.

381

demics of 1800 and 1804. I examined with attention the bed of the torrent of La Guayra; and found it to consist merely of a barren soil, blocks of mica-slate, and gneiss, containing pyrites detached from the Sierra do Avila, but nothing that could have had any effect in deteriorating the purity of the air.

Since the years 1797 and 1798, at which periods there prevailed dreadful mortality at Philadelphia, St. Lucia, and St. Domingo, the yellow fever has continued its ravages at La Guayra. It has proved fatal not only to the troops newly arrived from Spain, but also to those levied in parts remote from the coasts, in the llanos between Calabozo and Uritucu, regions almost as hot as La Guayra, but favourable to health. This latter fact would seem more surprising, did we not know, that even the natives of Vera Cruz, who are not attacked with typhus in their own town, sometimes sink under it during the epidemics of the Havannah and the United States. As the black vomit finds an insurmountable barrier at the Encero (four hundred and seventy-six toises high), on the declivity of the mountains of Mexico, in the direction of Xalapa, where oaks begin to appear, and the climate begins to be cool and pleasant, so the yellow fever scarcely ever passes beyond the ridge of mountains which separates La Guayra from the* valley of Caracas. This valley has been exempt from the malady for a considerable time; for we must not confound the vomito and the yellow fever with the irregular and bilious fevers. The Cumbre and the Cerro do Avila form a very useful rampart to the town of Caracas, the elevation of which a little exceeds that of the Encero, but of which the mean temperature is above that of Xalapa.

I have published in another work* the observations made

by M. Bonpland and myself on the locality of the towns periodically subject to the visitation of yellow fever; and I shall not hazard here any new conjectures on the changes observed in the pathogenic constitution of particular localities. The more I reflect on this subject, the more mysterious appears to me all that relates to those gaseous emanations which we call so vaguely the seeds of contagion, and which are supposed to be developed by a corrupted air, destroyed * Nouvelle Espagne, tom. ii.

382

PATHOLOGICAL

FACTS.

by cold, conveyed from place to place in garments, and attached to the walls of houses. How can we explain why, for the space of eighteen years prior to 1794, there was not a single instance of the vomito at Vera Cruz, though the concourse of unacclimated Europeans and of Mexicans from the interior, was very considerable ; though sailors indulged in the same excesses with which they are still reproached ; and though the town was not so clean as it has been since the year 1800 ?

The following is the series of pathological facts, considered m their simplest point of view. When a great number of persons, born in a cold climate, arrive at the same period in a port of the torrid zone, not particularly dreaded by navigators, the typhus of America begins to appear. Those persons have not had typhus during their passage; it appears among them only after they have landed. Is the atmospheric constitution changed ? or is it that a new form of disease developes itself among individuals whose susceptibility is highly increased ?

The typhus soon begins to extend its ravages among other Europeans, born in more; southern countries. If propagated b y contagion, it seems surprising that in the towns of the equinoctial continent it does not attach itself to certain streets ; and that immediate contact* does not augment the danger, any more than seclusion diminishes it. The sick, when removed to the inland country, and especially to cooler and more elevated spots, to Xalapa, for instance, do not communicate typhus to the inhabitants of those places, either because the disease is not contagious in its nature, or because the predisposing causes are not the same as in the regions of the shore. When there is a considerable lowering of the temperature, the epidemic usually ceases, even on thespot where it first appeared. It again breaks out at the approach of the hot season, and sometimes long before ; though * In the oriental plague (another form of typhus characterised by great disorder of the lymphatic system) immediate contact is less to be feared than is generally thought. Larrey maintains that the tumified glands may be touched or cauterized without danger; but he thinks we ought not to risk putting on the clothes of persons attacked with the plague.—Mémoire sur les Maladies de l'Année Françoise en Egypte,

p. 35.

THE

AMERICAN

TYPHUS.

383

during several months there may have been no sick person in the harbour, and no ship may have entered it.

The typhus of America appears to be confined to the shore, either because persons who bring the disease disembark there, and goods supposed to be impregnated with deleterious miasms are there accumulated; or because on the sea-side gaseous emanations of a particular nature are formed.

The aspect of the places subject to the ravages of typhus seems often to exclude all idea of a local or endemical origin.

It has been known to prevail in the Canaries, the Bermudas, and among the small West India Islands, in dry places formerly distinguished for the great salubrity of their climate.

Examples of the propagation of the yellow fever in the inland parts of the torrid zone appear very doubtful: that malady may have been confounded with remitting bilious fevers. With respect to the temperate zone, in which the contagious character of the American typhus is more decided, the disease has unquestionably spread far from the shore, even into very elevated places, exposed to cool and dry winds, as in Spain at Medina-Sidonia, at Carlotta, and in the city of Murcia. That variety of phenomena which the same epidemic exhibits, according to the difference of climate, the union of predisposing causes, its shorter or longer duration, and the degree of its exacerbation, should render us extremely circumspect in tracing the secret causes of the American typhus. M . Bailly, who, at the time of the violent epidemics in 1802 and 1803, was chief physician to the colony of St. Domingo, and who studied that disease in the island of Cuba, the United States, and Spain, is of opinion that the typhus is very often, but not always, contagious.

Since the yellow fever has made such ravages in La Guayra, exaggerated accounts have been given of the uncleanliness in that little town as well as of Vera Cruz, and of the quays or wharfs of Philadelphia. In a place where the soil is extremely dry, destitute of vegetation, and where scarcely a few drops of water fall in the course of seven or eight months, the causes that produce what are called miasms, cannot be of very frequent occurrence. La Guayra appeared to me in general to be tolerably clean, with the exception of the quarter of the slaughter-houses. The sea-side has no beach on which the remains of fuci or molluscs are heaped u p ; but the neigh-

384

PROPAGATION OF FEVERS.

bearing coast, which stretches eastward towards Cape Codera, and consequently to the windward of La Guayra, is extremely unhealthy. Intermitting, putrid, and bilious fevers often prevail at Macuto and at Caravalleda; and when from time to time the breeze is interrupted by a westerly wind, the little bay of Cotia sends air loaded with putrid emanations towards the coast of La Guayra, notwithstanding the rampart opposed by Cabo Blanco.

The irritability of the organs being so different in the people of the north and those of the south, it cannot be doubted, that with greater freedom of commerce, and more frequent and intimate communication between countries situated in different climates, the yellow fever will extend its ravages in the New World. It is even probable that the concurrence of so many exciting causes, and their action on individuals so differently organized, may give birth to new forms of disease and new deviations of the vital powers.

This is one of the evils that inevitably attend rising civilization.

The yellow fever and the black vomit cease periodically at the Havannah and Vera Cruz, when the north winds bring the cold air of Canada towards the gulf of Mexico. But from the extreme equality of temperature which characterizes the climates of Porto Cabello, La Guayra, New Barcelona, and Cumana, it may be feared that the typhus will there become permanent, whenever, from a great influx of strangers, it has acquired a high degree of exacerbation.

Tracing the granitic coast of La Guayra westward, we find between that port (which is in fact but an ill-sheltered roadstead) and that of Porto Cabello, several indentations of the land, furnishing excellent anchorage for ships.

Such are the small bay of Catia, Los Arecifes, Puerto-laCruz, Choroid, Sienega de Ocumare, Turiamo, Burburata, and Patanebo. All these ports, with the exception of that of Burburata, from which mules are exported to Jamaica, are now frequented only by small coasting vessels, which are there laden with provisions and cacao from the surrounding plantations. The inhabitants of Caracas are desirous to avail themselves of the anchorage of Catia, to the west of Cabo Blanco. M. Bonpland and myself examined that point of the coast during our second abode

386

CABO BLANCO.

at La Guayra. A ravine, called the Quebrada de Tipe, descends from the table-land of Caracas towards Catia, A plan has long been in contemplation for making a cartroad through this ravine and abandoning the old road to La Gruayra, which resembles the passage over St. Gothard. According to this plan, the port of Catia, equally large and secure, would supersede that of La Guayra. unfortunately, however, all that shore, to leeward of Cabo Blanco, abounds with mangroves, and is extremely in healthy. I ascended to the summit of the promontory, which forms Cabo Blanco, in order to observe the passage of the sun over the meridian. I wished to compare in the morning the altitudes taken with an artificial horizon and those taken with the horizon of the sea; to verify the apparent depression of the latter, by the barometrical measurement of the bill. By this method, hitherto very little employed, on reducing the heights of the sun to the same time, a reflecting instrument maybe used like an instrument furnished with a level. I found the latitude of the cape to be 10° 36' 4 5 " ; I could only make use of the angles which gave the image of the sun reflected on a plane glass: the horizon of the sea was very misty, and the windings of. the coast prevented me from taking the height of the sun on that horizon.

The environs of Cabo Blanco are not uninteresting for the study of rocks. The gneiss here passes into the state of mica-slate,* and contains, along the sea-coast, layers of schistose chlorite.† In this latter I found garnets and magnetical sand. On the road to Catia we see the chloritic schist passing into hornblende schist.‡All these formations are found together in the primitive mountains of the old world, especially in the north of Europe. The sea at the foot of Cabo Blanco throws up on the beach rolled fragments of a rock, which is a granular mixture of hornblende and lamellar feldspar. It is what is rather vaguely called primitive grunstein. In it we can recognize traces of quartz and pyrites. Submarine rocks probably exist near the coast, which furnish these very hard masses. I have * Glimmerschiefer.

†

Chloritschiefer.

‡ Hornblendschiefer.

VOL.

I.

2 c

386

EXCESSIVE

HEAT.

compared them in my journal to the paterlestein of Fichtelberg, in Franconia, which is also a diabase, but so fusible, that glass buttons are made of it, which are employed in the slave-trade on the coast of Guinea. I believed at first, according to the analogy of the phenomena furnished by the mountains of Franconia, that the presence of these hornblende masses with crystals of common (uncompact) feldspar indicated the proximity of transition rocks; but in the high valley of Caracas, near Antimano, balls of the same diabase fill a vein crossing the mica-slate. On the western declivity of the hill of Cabo Blanco, the gneiss is covered with a formation of sandstone, or conglomerate, extremely recent. This sandstone combines angular fragments of gneiss, quartz, and chlorite, magnetical sand, madrepores, and petrified bivalve shells. Is this formation of the same date as that of Punta Araya and Cumana ?

Scarcely any part of the coast has so burning a climate as the environs of Cabo Blanco. W e suffered much from the heat, augmented b y the reverberation of a barren and dusty soil; but without feeling any bad consequences from the effects of insolation. T h e powerful action of the sun on the cerebral functions is extremely dreaded at La Guayra, especially at the period when the yellow fever begins to be felt. Being one day on the terrace of the house, observing at noon the difference of the thermometer in the sun and in the shade, a man approached me holding in his hand a potion, which he conjured me to swallow, l i e was a physician, who from his window, had observed me bareheaded, and exposed to the rays of the sun. H e assured me, that, being a native of a very northern climate, I should infallibly, after the imprudence I had committed, be attacked with the yellow fever that very evening, if I refused to take the remedy against it. I was not alarmed by this prediction, however serious, believing myself to have been long acclimated; but I could not, resist yielding to entreaties, prompted

by such benevolent

feelings.

I

swallowed

the

d o s e ; and the physician doubtless counted me among the number of those he had saved.

The road leading from the port to Caracas (the capital o f a government o f near 900,000 inhabitants) resembles, as I have already observed, the passage over the Alps,

TEMPERATURE

OF

CARACAS.

387

the road of St. Gothard, and of the Great St. Bernard.

Taking the level of the road had never been attempted before my arrival in the province of Venezuela. N o precise idea had even been formed of the elevation of the valley of Caracas.

It had indeed been long observed, that the descent was much less from La Cumbre and Las Vueltas (the latter is the culminating point of the road towards the Bastora at the entrance of the valley of Caracas), than towards the port of La Guayra; but the mountain of Avila having a very considerable bulk, the eye cannot discern simultaneously the points to be compared. It is even impossible to form a precise idea of the elevation of Caracas, from the climate of the valley, where the atmosphere is cooled by the descending currents of air, and by the mists, which envelope the lofty summit of the Silla during a great part of the year.

When in the season of the great heats we breathe the burning atmosphere of La Guayra, and turn our eyes towards the mountains, it seems scarcely possible that, at the distance of five or six thousand toises, a population of forty thousand individuals assembled in a narrow valley, enjoys the coolness of spring, a temperature which at night descends to 12° of the centesimal thermometer. This near approach of different climates is common in the Cordillera of the Andes; but everywhere, at Mexico, at Quito, in Peru, and in New Granada, it is only after a long journey into the interior, either across plains or along rivers, that we reach the great cities, which are the central points of civilization. The height of Caracas is but a third of that of Mexico, Quito, and Santa Fé de Bogota; yet of all the capitals of Spanish America which enjoy a cool and deli cious climate in the midst of the torrid zone, Caracas is nearest to the coast. What a privilege for a city to possess a seaport at three leagues distance, and to be situated among mountains, on a table-land, which would produce wheat, if the cultivation of the coffee-tree were not preferred!

The road from La Guayra to the valley of Caracas is infinitely finer than the road from Honda to Santa Fé, or that from Guayaquil to Quito. It is kept in better order than the old road, which led from the port of Vera Cruz to Perote, on the eastern declivity of the mountains of New 2 c 2

388

LA

VENTA.

Spain. With good mules it takes but three hours to go from the port of La Guayra to Caracas ; and only two hours to return. With loaded mules, or on foot, the journey is from four to five hours. The road runs along a ridge of rooks extremely steep, and after passing the stations hearing respectively the names of Torre Quemada, Curucuti, and Salto, we arrive at a large inn (La Venta) built at six hundred toises above the level of the sea. The name Torre Quemada, or Burnt Tower, indicates the sensation that is felt in descending towards La Guayra. A suffocating heat is reflected from the walls of rock, and especially from the barren plains on which the traveller looks down. On this road, as on that from Vera Cruz to Mexico, and wherever on a rapid declivity the climate changes, the increase of muscular strength and the sensation of well-being, which we experience as we advance into strata of cooler air, have always appeared to me less striking than the feeling of languor and debility which pervades the frame, when we descend towards the burning plains of the coast. But such is the organization of man; and even in the moral world, we are less soothed by that which ameliorates our condition than annoyed by a new sensation of discomfort.

From Curucuti to Salto the ascent is somewhat less laborious. The sinuosities of the way render the declivity easier, as in the old road over Mont Cenis. The Salto (or Leap) is a crevice, which is crossed by a draw-bridge. Fortifications crown the summit of the mountain. A t La Venta the thermometer at noon stood at 193째, when at La Guayra it kept up at the same hour at 262째. La Venta enjoys some celebrity in Europe and in the United States, for the beauty of its surrounding scenery. When the clouds permit, this spot affords a magnificent, view of the sea, and the neighbouring coasts. An horizon of more than twenty-two l e a g u e s radius is visible; the white and barren shore reflects a dazzling mass of light; and the spectator beholds at his feet Cabo Blanco, the village of Maiquetia with its cocoatrees. La Guayra. and the vessels in the port. But I found this view far more extraordinary, when the sky was not serene, and when trains of clouds, strongly illumined on their upper surface, seemed projected like floating islands on the ocean. Strata of vapour, hovering at different

OPTICAL ILLUSION.

389

heights, formed intermediary spaces between the eye and the lower regions. By an illusion easily explained, they enlarged the scene, and rendered it more majestic. Trees and dwellings appeared at intervals through the openings, which were left by the clouds when driven on by the winds, and rolling over one another. Objects then appear at a greater depth than when seen through a pure and uniformly serene air. On the declivity of the mountains of Mexico, at the same height (between Las Trancas and Xalapa), the sea is twelve leagues distant, and the view of the coast is confused; while on the road from La Guayra to Caracas we command the plains (the tierra caliente), as from the top of a tower. How extraordinary must be the impression created by this prospect on natives of the inland parts of the country, who behold the sea and ships for the first time from this point.

I determined by direct observations the latitude of La Venta, that I might be enabled to give a more precise idea of the distance of the coasts. The latitude is 10째 33' 9".

Its longitude appeared to me by the chronometer, nearly 2' 47" west of the town of Caracas. I found the dip of the needle at this height to be 4175째, and the intensity of the magnetic forces equal to two hundred and thirty-four oscillations. From the Venta, called also La Venta Grande, to distinguish it from three or four small inns formerly established along the road, but now destroyed, there is still an ascent of one hundred and fifty toises to Guayavo. This is nearly the most lofty point of the road.

Whether we gaze on the distant horizon of the sea, or turn our eyes south-eastward, in the direction of the serrated ridge of rocks, which seems to unite the Cumbre and the Silla, though separated from them by the ravine (quebrada) of Tocume, every where we admire the grand character of the landscape, from Guayavo we proceed for half an hour over a smooth table-land, covered with alpine plants. This part of the way, on account of its windings, is called Las Vuseltas.

We find a little higher up the barracks or magazines of flour, Which were constructed in a spot of cool temperature by the Guipuzcoa Company, when they had the exclusive monopoly of the trade of Caracas, and supplied that place with provision. On the road to Las Vueltas we see for the first time

300

CITY

OF CARACAS.

the capital, situated three hundred toises below, in a valley luxuriantly planted with coffee and European fruit-trees Travellers are accustomed to halt near a fine spring, known by the name of Fuente de Sanchorquiz, which Hows down from the Sierra on sloping strata of gneiss. I found its temperature 16 4 째 ; which, for an elevation of seven hundred and twenty-six toises, is considerably cool, and it would appear much cooler to those who drink its limped water, if, instead of gushing out between La Cumbre and the temperate valley of Caracas, it were found on the descent towards La Guayra. But at this descent on the northern side of the mountain, the rock, by an uncommon exception in this country, does not dip to north-west, but to south-east, which prevents the subterranean waters from forming springs there.

W e continued to descend from the small ravine of San chorquiz to la Cruz de la Guayra, a cross erected on an open spot, six hundred and thirty-two toises high, and thence (entering by the custom-house and the quarter of the Pastora) to the city of Caracas. On the south side of the mountain of Avila, the gneiss presents several geognostical phenomena worthy of the attention of travellers. It is traversed by veins of quartz, containing cannulated and often articulated prisms of rutile titanite two or three lines in diameter. In the fissures of the quartz we find, on breaking it, very thin crystals, which crossing each other form a kind of network. Sometimes the red schorl occurs only in dendritic crystals of a bright red.* The gneiss of the valley of Caracas is characterized by the red and green garnets it contains; they however disappear when the rock passes into mica-slate. This same phenomenon has been remarked by Von Buch in Sweden ; but in the temperate parts of Europe garnets are in general contained in serpentine and micaslates, not in gneiss. In the walls which enclose the gardens of Caracas, constructed partly of fragments of gneiss, we find garnets of a very fine red, a little transparent, and very difficult to detach.

The gneiss near the Cross of La Guayra, half a league from Caracas, presented also vestiges of * Especially below the Cross of La Guayra, at 594 toises of absolute elevation.

STRATIFICATION OF ROCKS.

391

azure copper-ore* disseminated in veins of quartz, and small strata of plumbago (black lead), or earthy carburetted iron.

This last is found in pretty large masses, and sometimes mingled with sparry iron-ore, in the ravine of Tocume, to the west of the Silla.

Between the spring of Sanchorquiz and the Cross of La Guayra, as well as still higher up, the gneiss contains considerable beds of saccharoidal bluish-grey primitive limestone, coarse-grained, containing mica, and traversed by veins of white calcareous spar. The mica, with large folia, lies in the direction of the dip of the strata. I found in the primitive limestone a great many crystallized pyrites, and rhomboidal fragments of sparry iron-ore of Isabella yellow. I endeavoured, but without success, to find tremolite,† which in the Fitchelberg, in Franconia, is common in the primitive limestone without dolomite. In Europe beds of primitive limestone are generally observed in the mica-slates ; but we find also saccharoidal limestone in gneiss of the most ancient formation, in Sweden near Upsala, in Saxony near Burkersdorf, and in the Alps in the road over the Simplon. These situations are analogous to that of Caracas. The phenomena of geognosy, particularly those which are connected with the stratification of rocks, and their grouping, are never solitary but arc found the same in both hemispheres. I was the more struck with these relations, and this identity of formations, as, at the time of my journey in these countries, mineralogists were unacquainted with the name of a single rock of Venezuela, New Grenada, and the Cordilleras of Quito. * Blue carbonate of copper. † Grammatite of Haüry. The primitive limestone above the spring of Sanchorquiz, is directed, as the gneiss in that place, hor. 5 2, and dips 45° north ; but the general direction of the gneiss is, in the Cerro de Avila, hor. 3 4 with 60° of dip N . W . Exceptions merely local are observed in a small space of ground near the Cross of La Guayra (hor.

6 2, dip 8° N . ) ; and higher up, opposite the Quebrada of Tipe (hor. 12, dip50°W . ) .

392

PROVINCES OF VENEZUELA.

CHAPTER X I I .

General View of the Provinces of Venezuela.—Diversity of their Interests.

—City and Valley of Caracas.—Climate.

IN all those parts of Spanish America in which civilization did not exist to a certain degree before the Conquest (as it did in Mexico, Gruatimala, Quito, and Peru), it has advanced from the coasts to the interior of the country, following sometimes the valley of a great river, sometimes a chain of mountains, affording a temperate climate. Concentrated at once in different points, it has spread as if by diverging rays.

The union into provinces and kingdoms was effected on the first, immediate contact between civilized parts, or at least those subject to permanent and regular government. Lands descried, or inhabited by savage tribes, now surround the countries which European civilization has subdued. They divide its conquests like arms of the sea difficult to be passed, and neighbouring states are often connected with each other only by slips of cultivated land. It is less difficult to acquire a knowledge o f the configuration o f coasts washed by the ocean, than of the sinuosities of that interior shore, on which barbarism and civilization, impenetrable forests and cultivated land, touch and bound each other. From not having collected on the early state of society in the New World, geographers have often made their maps incorrect, by marking the different parts of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, as though they were contiguous at every point in the interior.

The local knowledge which I obtained respecting these boundaries, enables me to fix the extent of the great territorial divisions with some certainty, to compare the wild and inhabited parts, and to appreciate the degree of political influence exercised by certain towns of America, as centres of power and of commerce.

Caracas is the capital of a country nearly twice as large as Peru, and now little inferior in extent to the kingdom of New Grenada.* This country which the Spanish govern* The Capitania-General of Caracas contains near 48,000 square leagues (twenty-five to a degree). Peru, since La Paz, Potosi, Charcas,

303

GRADES OF CIVILIZATION.

mont designates by the name of Capitania-General de Caracas.* or of the united provinces of Venezuela, has nearly a million of inhabitants, among whom are sixty thousand slaves. It comprises, along the coasts, New Andalusia, or the province of Cumana (with the island of Margareta),t Barcelona, Venezuela or Caracas, Coro, and Maracaybo ; in the interior, the provinces of Varinas and Guiana; the former situated on the rivers of Santo Domingo and the Apure, the latter stretching along the Orinoco, the Casiquiare, the Atabapo. and the Rio Negro. In a general view of the seven united provinces of Terra Firma, we perceive that they form three distinct zones, extending from east to west.

W e find, first, cultivated land along the sea-shore, and near the chain of the mountains on the coast; next, savannahs or pasturages; and finally, beyond the Orinoco, a third zone, that of the forests, into which we can penetrate only by the rivers which traverse them. If the native inhabitants of the forests lived entirely on the produce of the chase, like those of the Missouri, we might say that the three zones into which we have divided the territory of Venezuela, picture the three states of human society; the life of the wild hinder, in the woods of the Orinoco; pastoral life, in the savannahs or llanos; and the agricultural state, in the high valleys, and at the foot of the mountains on the coast.

Missionary monks and some few soldiers occupy here, as throughout all Spanish America, advanced posts along the frontiers of Brazil. In this first zone are felt the preponderance of force, and the abuse of power, which is its necessary consequence. The natives carry on civil war, and sometimes devour one another. The monks endeavour to augment the number of little villages of their Missions, b y taking advantage of the dissensions of the natives. The miliand Santa Cruz de la Sierra, have been separated from it, contains only 30,000.

65,000.

Provincias,

New Grenada, Reinos,

including

the

Capitanias-Generales,

province

of

Presidencias,

are the names by which Spain formerly

Quito,

contains

Goviernos,

and

distinguished

her

transmarine possessions, or, as they were called, ' Dominios de Ultramar' (Dominions beyond Sea.) * The captain-general of Caracas has the title of " Capitan-General de las Provinces de Venezuela y Ciudad de Caracas." †This island, near the coast of Cumana, forms a separate govierno. depending immediately on the captain-general of Caracas.

391

THE THREE AGES OF SOCIETY.

tary live in a state of hostility to the monks, whom they were intended to protect. Everything presents a melancholy picture of misery and privation. We shall soon have occasion to examine more closely that state of man. which is vaunted as a state of nature, b y those who inhabit towns.

In the second region, in the plains and pasture-grounds, food is extremely abundant, but has little variety. Although more advanced in civilization, the people beyond the circle of some scattered towns are not less isolated from one another. At sight of their dwellings, partly covered with skins and leather, it might be supposed that, far from being fixed, they are scarcely encamped in those vast plains which extend to the horizon. Agriculture, which alone consolidates the bases, and strengthens the bonds of society, occupies the third zone, the shore, and especially the hot and temperate valleys among the mountains near the sea.

It may be objected, that in other parts of Spanish and Portuguese America, wherever we can trace the progressive development of civilization, we find the three ages of society combined. Put it must be remembered that the position of the three zones, that of the forests, the pastures, and the cultivated land, is not everywhere the same, and that it is nowhere so regular as in Venezuela. It is not always from the coast to the interior, that population, commercial industry, and intellectual improvement, diminish. In Mexico.

Peru, and Quito, the table-lands and central mountains possess the greatest number of cultivators, the most numerous towns situated near to each other, and the most ancient institutions. We even find, that, in the kingdom of Buenos Ayres, the region o f pasturage, known by the name of the Pampas, lies between the isolated part of Buenos Ayres and the great mass of Indian cultivators, who inhabit the Cordilleras o f Charcas, La Paz, and Potosi. This circumstance gives birth to a diversity of interests, in the same; country, between the; people o f the interior and those who inhabit the coasts.

To form an accurate idea of those vast provinces which have been governed for ages, almost like separate states, by viceroys and captains-general, we must fix our attention at once on several points. We must distinguish the parts of Spanish America opposite to Asia from those on the shores

DIFFERENCE OF RACES.

395

of the Atlantic; we must ascertain where the greater portion of the population is placed; whether near the coast, or concentrated in the interior, on the cold and temperate table-lands of the Cordilleras. W e must verily the numerical proportions between the natives and other castes; search into the origin of the European families, and examine to what race, in each part of the colonies, belongs the greater number of whites. The Andalusian-Canarians of Venezuela, the Mountaineers* and the Biscayans of Mexico, the Catalonians of Buenos Ayres, differ essentially in their aptitude for agriculture, for the mechanical arts, for commerce, and for all objects connected with intellectual development.

Each of those races has preserved, in the New as in the Old World, the shades that constitute its national physiognomy ÂĄ its asperity or mildness of character; its freedom from sordid feelings, or its excessive love of gain; its social hospitality, or its taste for solitude. I n the countries where the population is for the most part composed of Indians and mixed races, the difference between the Europeans and their descendants cannot indeed be so strongly marked, as that which existed anciently in the colonies of Ionian and Doric origin. The Spaniards transplanted to the torrid zone, estranged from the habits of their mother-country, must have felt more sensible changes than the Greeks settled on the coasts of Asia Minor, and of Italy, where the climates differ so little from those of Athens and Corinth. It cannot be denied that the character of the Spanish Americans has been variously modified by the physical nature of the country; the isolated sites of the capitals on the table-lands or in the vicinity of the coasts; the agricultural life; the labour of the mines, and the habit of commercial speculation: but in the inhabitants of Caracas, Santa FĂŠ, Quito, and Buenos Ayres, we recognize everywhere something which belongs to the race and the filiation of the people.

I f we examine the state of the Capitania-General of Caracas, according to the principles here laid down, we perceive that agricultural industry, the great mass of population, the numerous towns, and everything connected with advanced civilization, are found near the coast. This coast * MontaĂąeses.

The inhabitants of the mountains of Santander are called by this name in Spain.

NATIVE POPULATION. extends along a space of two hundred leagues.

It is washed by the Caribbean Sea, a sort of Mediterranean, on the shores of which almost all the nations of Europe have founded colonies; which communicates at several points with the Atlantic; and which has had a considerable influence on the progress of knowledge in the eastern part of equinoctial America, from the time of the Conquest. The kingdoms of New Grenada and Mexico have no connection with foreign colonies, and through them with the nations o f E u r o p e , except by the ports of Carthagena, of Santa Martha, of Vera Cruz, and of Campeachy. These vast countries, from the nature of their coasts, and the isolation of their inhabitants on the back of the Cordilleras, have few points of contact with foreign lands. The gulf of Mexico also is but little frequented during a part of the year, on account of the danger of gales of wind from the north. The coasts of Venezuela, on the contrary, from their extent, their eastward direction, the number o f their ports, and the safety of their anchorage at different seasons, possess all the advantages of the Caribbean Sea. The communications with the larger islands, and even with those situated to windward, can nowhere be more frequent than from the ports of Cumana, Barcelona, La Guayra, PortoCabello, Coro, and Maracaybo. Can we wonder that this facility o f commercial intercourse with the inhabitants of free America, and the agitated nations o f Europe, should in

the provinces united under the Capitania-Goneral of Venezuela, have augmented opulence, knowledge, and that restless desire of a local government, which is blended with the love of liberty and republican forms ?

The copper-coloured natives, or Indians, constitute an important mass of the agricultural population only in those places where the Spaniards, at the time of the Conquest, found regular governments, social communities, and ancient and very plicated institutions; as, for example, in .New Spain, south o f Durango; and in Peru, from Cuzco to Potosi. In the Capitania-General o f Caracas, the Indian population is inconsiderable, at least beyond the Missions and in the cultivated zone. Even in times of great political excitement, the natives do not inspire any apprehension in the whites or the mixed castes. Computing, in 1800, the

BLACK

INHABITANTS.

397

total population of the seven united provinces at nine hundred thousand souls, it appeared to me that the Indians made only one-ninth ; while at Mexico they form nearly one half of the inhabitants.

Considering the Caribbean Sea, of which the gulf of Mexico makes a part, as an interior sea with several mouths, it is important to fix our attention on the political relations arising out of this singular configuration of the New Continent, between countries placed around the same basin.

Notwithstanding the isolated state in which most of the mother-countries endeavour to hold their colonies, the agitations that take place are not the less communicated from one to the other. The elements of discord are everywhere the same; and, as if by instinct, an understanding is established between men of the same colour, although separated by difference of language, and inhabiting opposite coasts.

That American Mediterranean formed by the shores of Venezuela, N e w Grenada, Mexico, the United States, and the West India Islands, counts upon its borders near a million and a half of free and enslaved blacks; but so unequally distributed, that there are very few to the south, and scarcely any in the regions of the west. Their great accumulation is on the northern and eastern coasts, which may be said to be the African part of the interior basin.

The commotions which since 1792 have broken out in St. Domingo, have naturally been propagated to the coasts of Venezuela. So long as Spain possessed those fine colonies in tranquillity, the little insurrections of the slaves were easily repressed ; but when a struggle of another kind, that for independence, began, the blacks by their menacing position excited alternately the apprehensions of the opposite parties; and the gradual or instantaneous abolition of slavery has been proclaimed in different regions of Spanish America, less from motives of justice and humanity, than to secure the aid of an intrepid race of men, habituated to privation, and fighting for their own cause. I found in the narrative of the voyage of Girolamo Benzoni, a curious passage, which proves that the apprehensions caused by the increase of the Hack population are of very old date. These apprehensions will cease only where governments shall second by laws the progressive reforms which refinement of manners, opinion,

398

STATISTICS

OF

SLAVERY.

and religious sentiment, introduce into domestic slavery. " T h e negroes," says Benzoni, "multiply so much at St. Domingo, that in 1545, when I was in Terra Firma [on the coast of Caracas], I saw many Spaniards who had no doubt that the island would shortly be the property of the blacks."* It was reserved for our age to see this prediction accomplished; and a European colony of America transform itself into an African state.

The sixty thousand slaves which the seven united provinces of Venezuela are computed t o contain, are so unequally divided, that in the province of Caracas alone there are nearly forty thousand, one-fifth o f whom are mulattoes; in Maracaybo, there are ten or twelve thousand; but in Cumana and Barcelona, scarcely six thousand. To judge of the influence which the slaves and men of colour exercise on the public tranquility, it is not enough to know their number, we must consider their accumulation at certain points, and their manner of life, as cultivators or inhabitants of towns. In the province of Venezuela, the slaves are assembled together on a space of no great extent, between the coast, and a line which passes (at twelve leagues from the coast) through Panaquire, Yare, Sabana de Ocumare, Villa de Cura, and Nirgua. The llanos o r vast plains of Calaboso, San Carlos, Guanare, and Barquecimeto, contain only four or five thousand slaves, who are scattered among the farms, and employed in the care of cattle. The number of free men is very considerable; the Spanish laws and customs being favourable to affranchisement. A master cannot refuse liberty to a slave who offers him the sum of three hundred piastres, sven though the slave may have cost double that price, on account of his industry, or a particular aptitude for the trade he practises.

Instances of persons who voluntarily bestow liberty on a certain number of their slaves, are more common in the * " Vi sono molti Spagnuoli che tengono per cosa certa, che quest' isola (San Dominico) in breve tempo sara posseduta da questi Mori di Guinea."

(Benzoni, Istoria del Mondo Nuovo, ediz. 2da, 1072, p. 65.)

The author, who is not very scrupulous in the adoption of statistical facts, believes that in his time there were at St. Domingo seven thousand fugitive negroes (Mori cimaroni), with whom Don Luis Columbus made a treaty of peace and friendship.

PROPORTION OF RACES.

399

province of Venezuela than in any other place. A short time before we visited the fertile valleys of Aragua and the lake of Valencia, a lady who inhabited the great village of Victoria, ordered her children, on her death-bed, to give liberty to all her slaves, thirty in number. I feel pleasure in recording facts that do honour to the character of a people from whom M. Bonpland and myself received so many marks of kindness.

If we compare the seven united provinces of Venezuela with the kingdom of Mexico and the island of Cuba, we shall succeed in finding the approximate number of white Creoles, and even of Europeans. The white Creoles, whom I may call Hispano-Americans,* form in Mexico nearly a fifth, and in the island of Cuba, according to the very accurate enumeration of 1801, a third of the whole population.

When we reflect that the kingdom of Mexico contains two millions and a half of natives of the copper-coloured race; when we consider the state of the coasts bordering on the Pacific, and the small number of whites in the intendencias of Puebla and Oaxaca, compared with the natives, we cannot doubt that the province of Venezuela at least, if not the capitania-general, has a greater proportion than that of one to five. The island of Cuba,†in which the whites are even more numerous than in Chile, may furnish us with a limiting number, that is to say, the maximum which may be supposed in the capitania-general of Caracas. I believe we must stop at at two hundred, or two hundred and ten thousand Hispano-Americans, in a total population of nine hundred thousand souls. The number of Europeans included in the white race (pot comprehending the troops sent from the mother-country) does not exceed twelve or fifteen thousand.

It certainly is not greater at Mexico than sixty thousand; and I find by several statements, that, if we estimate the whole of the Spanish colonies at fourteen or * In imitation of the word Anglo-American, adapted in all the languages of Europe.

In the Spanish colonies, the whites horn in America are called Spaniards; and the real Spaniards, those born in the mothercountry, are called Europeans, Gachupins, or Chapetons. †I do not mention the kingdom of Buenos Ayres. where, among a million of inhabitants, the whites are extremely numerous in parts near the coast; while the table-lands, or provinces of the sierra, arc almost entirely peopled with natives.

400

TUPAC-AMARU.

fifteen millions of inhabitants, there are in that number at most three millions of Creole whites, and two hundred thousand Europeans.

When Tupac-Amaru, who believed himself to be the legitimate heir to the empire of the Incas, made the conquest of several provinces of Upper Peru, in 1781, at the head of forty thousand Indian mountaineers, all the whites were filled with alarm. The Hispano-Americans felt, like the Spaniards born in Europe, that the contest was between the copper-coloured race and the whites; between barbarism and civilization. Tupac-Amaru, who himsel was not destitute of intellectual cultivation, began with flattering the creoles and the European clergy; but soon, impelled by events, and by the spirit of vengeance that inspired his nephew, Andres Condorcanqui, he changed his plan.

A rising for independence became a cruel war between the different castes; the whites were victorious, and excited by a feeling of common interest, from that period they kept watchful attention on the proportions existing in the different provinces between their numbers and those of the Indians.

It was reserved for our times to see the whites direct this attention towards themselves; and examine, from motives of distrust, the elements of which their own caste is composed.

Every enterprise in favour of independence and liberty puts the national or American party m opposition to the men of the mother-country. When I arrived at Caracas, the latter had just escaped from the danger with which they thought they were menaced by the insurrection projected

by Espa単a. The consequences of that bold attempt were the more deplorable, because, instead of investigating the real causes of the popular discontent, it was thought that the mother-country would be saved by employing vigorous measures At present, the commotions which have arisen throughout the country, from the banks of the Rio de la Plata to New Mexico, an extent of fourteen hundred leagues, have divided men of a common origin.

The Indian population in the united provinces of Venezuela is not considerable, and is but recently civilized. All the towns were founded by the Spanish conquerors, who could not carry out, as in Mexico and Peru, the old civilization of the natives. Caracas, Maracaybo, Cumana, and

401

CITY OF CARACAS.

Coro, have nothing Indian but their names. Compared with the three capitals of equinoctial America,* situated on the mountains, and enjoying a temperate climate, Caracas is the least elevated. It is not a central point of commerce, like Mexico, Santa Fé de Bogota, and Quito. Each of the seven provinces united in one capitania-general has a port, by which its produce is exported. It is sufficient to consider the position of the provinces, their respective degree of intercourse with the Windward Islands, the direction of the mountains, and the course of the great rivers, to perceive that Caracas can never exercise any powerful political influence over the territories of which it is the capital. The -A pure, the Meta, and the Orinoco, running from west to east, receive all the streams of the llanos, or the region of pasturage. St. Thomas de la Guiana will necessarily, at some future day, be a trading-place of high importance, especially when the flour of New Grenada, embarked above the confluence of the Rio Negro and the Umadea, and descending by the Meta and Orinoco, shall be preferred at Caracas and Guiana to the flour of New England. It is a great advantage to the provinces of Venezuela, that their territorial Wealth is not directed to one point, like that of Mexico and New Grenada, which flows to Vera Cruz and Carthagena; but that they possess a great number of towns equally well peopled, and forming various centres of commerce and civilization.

The city of Caracas is seated at the entrance of the plain of Chacao, which extends three leagues eastward, in the direction of Caurimare and the Cuesta de Auyamas, and is two leagues and a half in breadth. This plain, through which runs the Rio Guayra, is at the elevation of four hundred and fourteen toises above the level of the sea. The ground on which the city of Caracas is built is uneven, and has a steep slope from N . N . W . to S.S.E. To form an accurate idea of the situation of Caracas, we must bear in mind the general direction of the mountains of the coast, and the great longitudinal valleys by which they are traversed. The * Mexico, Santa Fé de Bogotá, and Quito. The elevation of the site of the capital of Guatimala is still unknown. Judging from the vegetation, we may infer that it is less than .500 toises.

VOL.

I.

2D

402

VALLEYS

OF CARACAS

A N D OF T H E T U Y .

Rio Guayra rises in the group of primitive mountains of Higuerote, which separates the valley of Caracas from that of Aragua. It is formed near Las Ajuntas, by the junction of the little rivers of San Pedro and Macarao, and runs first eastward as far as the Cuesta of Auyamas, and then southward, uniting its waters with those of the Rio Tuy, below Yare. The Rio Tuy is the only considerable river in the northern and mountainous part of the province.

The river Hows in a direct course from west to east, the distance of thirty leagues, and it is navigable along more than three quarters of that distance. By barometrical measurements I found the slope of the Tuy along this length, from the plantation of Manterola* to its mouth, east of Cape Codera, to be two hundred and ninety-five toises.

This river forms in the chain of the coast a kind of longitudinal valley, while the waters of the llanos, or of fivesixths of the province of Caracas, follow the slope of the land southward, and join the Orinoco. This hydrographic sketch may throw some light on the natural tendency of the inhabitants of each particular province, to export their productions by different roads.

The valleys of Caracas and of the Tuy run parallel for a considerable length. They are separated b y a mountainous tract, which is crossed in going from Caracas to the high savannahs of Ocumare, passing by La Valle and Salamanca.

These savannahs themselves are beyond the Tuy ; and the valley of the Tuy being a great deal lower than that of Caracas, the descent is almost constantly froth north to south. A s Cape Codera, the Silla, the Cerro de Avila between Caracas and La Guayra, and the mountains of Mariara, constitute the most northern and elevated range of the coast chain; so the mountains of Panaquire, Ocumare, Guiripa, and of the; Villa de Cura, form the most southern range. The general direction of the strata composing this vast chain of the coast is from south-cast to north-west; and the dip is generally towards n o r t h - w e s t : hence it follows,

that the direction of the primitive strata is independent of that of the whole chain. It is extremely remarkable, • At the foot of the high mountain of Cocuyza, 3 east from Victoria.

POSITION

OF

403

CARACAS.

tracing this chain* from Porto Cabello as far as Maniquarez and Macanao, in the island of Margarcta, to find, from west to east, first granite, then gneiss, mica-slate, and primitive schist; and finally, compact limestone, gypsum, and conglomerates containing sea-shells.

It is to be regretted that the town of Caracas was not built farther to the east, below the entrance of the Anauco into the Guayra; on that spot near Chacao, where the valley widens into an extensive plain, which seems to have been levelled by the waters. Diego de Losada, when he founded † the town, followed no doubt the traces of the first establishment made by Faxardo. A t that time, the Spaniards, attracted by the high repute of the two gold mines of Los Teques and Baruta, were not yet masters of the whole valley, and preferred remaining near the road leading to the coast. The town of Quito is also built in the narrowest and most uneven part of a valley, between two fine plains, Turupamba and Rumipamba.

The descent is uninterrupted from the custom-house of the Pastora, by the square of Trinidad and the Plaza Mayor, to Santa Rosalia, and the Rio Guayra. This declivity of the ground does not prevent carriages from going about the town; but the inhabitants make little use of them. Three small rivers, descending from the mountains, the Anauco, the Catuche, and the Caraguata, intersect the town, running from north to south. Their banks are very high; and, with the dried-up ravines which join them, furrowing the ground, they remind the traveller of the famous Guaicos of Quito, only on a smaller scale. The water used for drinking at Caracas is that of the Rio Catuche; but the richer class of the inhabitants have their water brought from La Valle, a village a league distant on the south. This water and that of Gamboa are considered very salubrious, because they flow over the roots of sarsaparilla.‡ I could not discover in * I have spoken, in the preceding chapter, p. 374, of the interruption in the chain of the coast to the east of Cape Codera. † The foundation of Santiago de Leon de Caracas dates from 1567, and is posterior to that of Cumana, Coro, Nueva Barcelona, and Caravalleda, or El Collado. ‡ Throughout America water is supposed to share the properties of those plants under the shade of which it flows. Thus, at the Straits

2 D2

404

PUBLIC

EDIFICES

AND

STRUCTURES.

them any aromatic or extractive matter. The water of the valley does not contain lime, but a little more carbonic acid than the water o f t h e Anauco. The n e w bridge over this Caracas contains eight river is a handsome structure. churches, five convents, and a theatre capable o f holding fifteen or eighteen hundred persons. When I was there, the pit, in which the seats o f the men are apart from those of the women, was uncovered. B y this means the spectators could either look at the actors or gaze at t h e stars. As the misty weather made me lose a great many observations o f .Jupiter's satellites. I was able to ascertain, as I sat in a box in the theatre, whether the planet would b e visible that night. The streets of Caracas are wide and straight, and they cross each other at right angles, as in all the towns built by the Spaniards in America.

The houses are spacious, and higher

than they ought to be in a country subject t o earthquakes.

In 1800, the two squares o f Alta Gracia and San francisco presented a very agreeable aspect; I say in the year 1800, because the terrible shocks o f the 26th of March, 1812, almost destroyed the whole city, which is only now slowly rising from its ruins. The quarter o f Trinidad, in which I resided, was destroyed as completely as if a mine had been sprung beneath it.

The small extent of the valley, and the proximity of the high mountains of Avila and the Silla, give a gloomy and stern character to the scenery of Caracas; particularly in that part of the year when the coolest temperature prevails, viz., in the months o f November and December. The mornings are then very fine; and on a clear and serene sky we could perceive the two domes o r rounded pyramids of the Silla, and the craggy ridge o f the Cerro de Avila. But towards evening the atmosphere thickens; the mountains are overhung with clouds; streams of vapour cling t o their evergreen s l o p e s , and seem to divide them into zones one above another. These zones are gradually blended together; the cold air which descends from the Silla, accumulates in the valley, and condenses the light vapours into large fleecy clouds. These often descend below the Cross of La Guayra, and advance, gliding on the soil, in the direction of the Pastora of Magellan, that water is much praised which comes in contact with the roots of the Canella winterana.

DELIGHTFUL CLIMATE.

405

of Caracas, and the adjacent quarter of Trinidad. Beneath this misty sky, I could scarcely imagine my self to be in one of the temperate valleys of the torrid zone; but rather in the north of Germany, among the pines and the larches that cover the mountains of the Hartz.

But this gloomy aspect, this contrast between the clearness of morning and the cloudy sky of evening, is not observable in the midst of summer. The nights of June and July are clear and delicious. The atmosphere then preserves, almost without interruption, the purity and transparency peculiar to the table-lands and elevated valleys of these regions in calm weather, as long as the winds do not mingle together strata of air of unequal temperature. That is the season for enjoying the beauty o f the landscape, which, however, I saw clearly illumined only during a few days at the end of January. The two rounded summits of the Silla are seen at Caracas, almost under the same angles of elevation* as the peak of Teneriffe at the port of Orotava.

The first half of the mountain is covered with short grass; then succeeds the zone of evergreen trees, reflecting a purple light at the season when the befaria, the alpine rose-tree† of equinoctial America, is in blossom. The rocky masses rise above this wooded zone in the form of domes. Being destitute of vegetation, they increase by the nakedness of their surface the apparent height of a mountain which, in the temperate parts of Europe, would scarcely rise to the limit of perpetual snow. The cultivated region of the valley, and the gay plains of Chacao, Petare, and La Vega, form an agreeable contrast to the imposing aspect of the Silla, and the great irregularities of the ground on the north of the town.

The climate of Caracas has often been called a perpetual spring. The same sort of climate exists everywhere, halfway up the Cordilleras of equinoctial America, between four hundred and nine hundred toises of elevation, except in places where the great breadth of the valleys, combined with an arid soil, causes an extraordinary intensity ‡of radiant * I found, at the square of Trinidad, the apparent height of the Silla to be 11° 12' 49".

It was about four thousand five hundred toises distant. † Rhododendron ferrugineum of the Alps. ‡ As at Carthago and Ibague in New Grenada.

406

CHANGES OF TEMPERATURE.

caloric. What can we conceive to be more delightful than a temperature which in the day keeps between 20° and 26°;* and at night between 16° and 18°,† which is equally favourable to the plantain, the orange-tree, the coffee-tree, the apple, the apricot, and corn ? Jose de Oviedo y Baños, the historiographer of Venezuela, calls the situation of Caracas that of a terrestrial paradise, and compares the Anauco and the neighbouring torrents to the four rivers of the Garden of Eden.

It is to be regretted that this delightful climate is generally inconstant and variable. The inhabitants of Caracas complain of having several seasons in one and the same day; and of the rapid change from one season to another. In the month of January, for instance, a night, of which the mean temperature is l6° , is sometimes followed by a day when the t h e r m o m e t e r during eight successive hours keeps above 22°

in the shade. In the same day, wo may find the temperature of 24° and 18°. These variations are extremely common in our temperate climates of Europe, but in the torrid zone, Europeans themselves are so accustomed to the uniform action of exterior stimulus, that they suffer from a change of temperature of 6°. At Cumana, and everywhere in the plains, the temperature from eleven in the morning to eleven at night changes only 2 or3°. Moreover, these variations act on the human frame at Caracas more violently than might be supposed from the mere indications of the thermometer.

In this narrow valley the atmosphere is in some sort balanced between two winds, one blowing from the west, or the seaside, the other from the east, o r the inland country.

The first is known by the name of the wind of Catia, because it blows from Catia westward of Cabo Blanco through the ravine of Tipe. It is, however, only a westerly wind in appearance, and it is oftener the breeze of the east and north-east, which, rushing with extreme impetuosity, engulfs itself in the Quebrada de Tipe. Rebounding from the high mountains o f A g u a s Negras, Ibis wind finds its way back to Caracas, i n the d i r e c t i o n o f the hospital of the Capuchins and the Rio Caraguata.

It is loaded with vapours, which it deposits as its temperature decreases, and consequently the summit of the Silla is enveloped in * Between 1 6 ° a n d 20 8° Reaum. † Between 12 8° and 14 4° Reaum.

INSALUBRIOUS WINDS.

407

clouds, when the catia blows in the valley. This wind is dreaded by the inhabitants of Caracas; it causes headache in persons whose nervous system is irritable. In order to slum its effects, people sometimes shut themselves up in their houses, as they do in Italy when the sirocco is blowing. I thought I perceived, during my stay at Caracas, that the wind of Catia was purer (a little richer in oxygen) than the wind of Petare. I even imagined that its purity might explain its exciting property. The wind of Pet are coming from the east and south-cast, by the eastern extremity of the valley of the Guayra, brings from the mountains and the interior of the country, a drier air, which dissipates the clouds, and the summit of the Silla rises in all its beauty.

W e know that the modifications produced by winds in the composition of the air in various places, entirely escape our eudiometrical experiments, the most precise of which can estimate only as far as 0003° of oxygen. Chemistry does not yet possess any means of distinguishing two jars of air, the one filled during the prevalence of the sirocco or the catia, and the other before these winds have commenced. It appears to me probable, that the singular effects of the catia, and of all those currents of air, to the influence of which popular opinion attaches so much importance, must be looked for rather in the changes of humidity and of temperature, than in chemical modifications. W e need not trace miasms to Caracas from the unhealthy shore on the coast: it may be easily conceived that men accustomed to the drier air of the mountains and the interior, must be disagreeably affected when the very humid air of the sea, pressed through the gap of Tipe, reaches in an ascending current the high valley of Caracas, and, getting cooler by dilatation, and by contact with the adjacent strata, deposits a great portion of the Water it contains. This inconstancy of climate, these somewhat rapid transitions from dry and transparent to humid and misty air, are inconveniences which Caracas shares in common with the whole temperate region of the tropics— with all places situated between four and eight hundred toises of elevation, either on table-lands of small extent, or on the slope of the Cordilleras, as at Xalapa in Mexico,

408

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ATMOSPHERE.

and Guaduas in New Granada. A serenity, uninterrupted during a great part of the year, prevails only in the low regions at the level of the sea, and at considerable heights on those vast table-lands, where the uniform radiation of the soil seems to contribute to the perfect dissolution of vesicular vapours. The intermediate zone is at the same height as the first strata of clouds which surround the surface of the earth; and the climate of this zone, the temperature of which is so mild, is essentially misty and variable.

Notwithstanding the elevation of the spot, the sky is generally less blue at Caracas than at Cumana. The aqueous vapour is less perfectly dissolved; and here, as in our climates, a greater diffusion of light diminishes the intensity of the aërial colour, by introducing white into the blue of the air. This intensity, measured with the cyanometer of Saussure, was found from November to January generally 18°, never above 20°. On the coasts it was from 22° to 25°. I remarked, in the village of Caracas, that the wind of Petare sometimes contributes singularly to give a pale tint to the celestial vault. On the 22nd o f January, the blue of the sky was at noon in the zenith feebler than I ever saw it in the torrid zone.* It corresponded only to 12° of the cyanometer. The atmosphere was then remarkably transparent, without clouds, and of extraordinary dryness. The moment the wind of Petare ceased, the blue colour rose at the zenith as high as 16°. I have often observed at sea, but in a smaller degree, a similar effect of the wind on the colour of the serenest sky.

We know less exactly the mean temperature of Caracas,

than that of Santa Fé de Bogotá and of Mexico. I believe, however, I can demonstrate, that it cannot, be very distant from twenty t o twenty-two degrees. I found by my own observations, during the three very cool months of November, Decemberr, and .January, taking each day the maximum and minimum of the temperature, the heights were 2 0 2 ° ; 2 0 1 ° ; 202°. * At noon, thermometer in the shade 23.7° (in the sun, out of the wind, 30 4°); De Luc's hygrometer, .36°2°; cyanometer, at the zenith, 12°, at the horizon 9°. The wind ceased at three in the afternoon. Therm.

21°; hygr. 39 3°; cyan. 16°.

At six o'clock, therm. 2 0 . 2 ° ; hygr. 39°.

409

VEGETABLE PRODUCTIONS.

Rains are extremely frequent at Caracas in the months of April, May, and June. The storms always come from the east and south-east, from the direction of Petare and La Valle. No hail falls in the low regions of the tropics; yet it occurs at Caracas almost every four or five years.

Hail has even been seen in valleys still lower; and this phenomenon, when it does happen, makes a powerful impression on the people. Palls of aerolites are less rare with us than hail in the torrid zone, notwithstanding the frequency of thunder-storms at the elevation of three hundred toises above the level of the sea.

The cool and delightful climate we have just been describing is also suited for the culture of equinoctial productions. T h e sugar-cane is reared with success, even at heights exceeding that of Caracas; but in the valley, owing to the dryness of the climate, and the stony soil, the cultivation of the coffee-tree is preferred: it yields indeed but little fruit, but that little is of the finest quality. When the shrub is in blossom, the plain extending beyond Chacao presents a delightful aspect. The banana-tree, which is seen in the plantations near the town, is not the great Platano

harton;

but the varieties camburi

and

dominico,

which require less heat. The great plantains are brought to the market of Caracas from the haciendas of Turiamo, situated on the coast between Burburata and Porto Cabello.

The finest flavoured pine-apples are those of Baruto, of Empedrado, and of the heights of Buenavista, on the road to Victoria. W h e n a traveller f o r the first time visits the Valley of Caracas, he is agreeably surprised to find the culinary plants of our climates, as w e l l as the strawberry, the vine, and almost all the fruit-trees of the temperate zone, growing beside the coffee a n d b a n a n a - t r e e . The applets a n d peaches esteemed the best come from Macarao, or from the Western extremity of the valley. There, the quince-tree, the trunk of which attains only four or live feet in height, is so common, that it has almost become wild. Preserved apples and quinces, particularly the latter,* are much used in a country where it is thought that, before drinking Water, thirst should be excited by sweetmeats.

In proportion as the environs of the town have been planted with * " Dulce de manzana y de m e m b r i l l o , " are the Spanish names o f these preserves.

410

PREVALENT DISEASES.

coffee, and the establishment of plantations (which dates only from the year 1795) has increased the number of agricultural negroes,* the apple and quince-trees scattered in the savannahs have given place, in the valley of Caracas, to maize and pulse. Rice, watered by means of small trenches, was formerly more common than it now is in the plain of Chacao. I observed in this province, as in Mexico and in all the elevated lands of the torrid zone, that, where the apple-tree is most abundant, the culture of the peartree is attended with great difficulty. I have been assured, that near Caracas the excellent apples sold in the markets come from trees not grafted. There are no cherry-trees.

The olive-trees which I saw in the court of the convent of San Felipe de Neri, were large and fine; but the luxuriance of their vegetation prevented them from bearing fruit.

If the atmospheric constitution of the valley be favourable to the different kinds of culture on which colonial industry is based, it is not equally favourable to the health of the inhabitants, or to that of foreigners settled in the capital of Venezuela. The extreme inconstancy of the weather, and the frequent suppression of cutaneous perspiration, give birth to catarrhal affections, which assume the most various forms. A European, once accustomed to the violent heat, enjoys better health at Cumana, in the valley of Aragua, and in every place where the low region of the tropics is not very humid, than at Caracas, and in those mountain-climates which are vaunted as the abode of perpetual spring.

Speaking of the yellow fever o f La Guavra, I mentioned the opinion generally adopted, that this disease is propagated ÂŤas little from the coast of Venezuela to the capital, as from the coast of Mexico to Xalapa. This opinion is founded on the experience of the last twenty years. The contagious disorders which were severely felt in the port

of L a Guayra. were scarcely felt at Caracas. I am not convinced that the American typhus, rendered endemic on * The consumption of provisions, especially meat, is so considerable in the towns of Spanish America, that at Caracas, in 1800, there were 40,000 oxen killed every year: while in Paris, in 1793, with a population fourteen times as great the number amounted only to 70,000.

PREVALENT DISEASES.

411

the coast as the port becomes more frequented, if favoured by particular dispositions of the climate, may not become common in the valley: for the mean temperature of Caracas is considerable enough to allow the thermometer, in the hottest months, to keep between twenty-two and twentysix degrees. The situation of Xalapa, on the declivity of the Mexican mountains, promises more security, because that town is less populous, and is five times farther distant from the sea than Caracas, and two hundred and thirty toises higher: its mean temperature being three degrees cooler. In 1696, a bishop of Venezuela, Diego de Ba単os, dedicated a church (ermita) to Santa Rosalia of Palermo, for having delivered the capital from the scourge of the black vomit (vomito negro), which is said to have raged for the space of sixteen months. A mass celebrated every year in the cathedral, in the beginning of September, perpetuates the remembrance of this epidemic, in the same manner as processions fix, in the Spanish colonies, the date of the great earthquakes. The year 1696 was indeed very remarkable for the yellow fever, which raged with violence in all the West India Islands, where it had only begun to gain an ascendancy in 1688. But how can we give credit to an epidemical black vomit, having lasted sixteen months without interruption, and which may be said to have passed through that very cool season when the thermometer at Caracas falls to twelve or thirteen degrees? Can the typhus be of older date in the elevated valley of Caracas, than in the mostfrequentedporta of Terra Firma. According to Ulloa, it was unknown in Terra Pinna before 1729. I doubt, therefore, the epidemic of 1696 having been the yellow fever, or real typhus of America. Some of the symptoms which accompany yellow fever are common to bilious remittent fevers ; and are no more characteristic than hamatemeses of that severe disease now known at the .Havannah and Vera Cruz by the name of vomito. But though no accurate description satisfactorily demonstrates that the typhus of America existed at Caracas as early as the end of the seventeenth century, it is unhappily too certain, that this disease carried off in that capital a great number of European soldiers in 1802. We are filled with dismay when We reflect that, in the centre of the torrid zone, a table-land

412

RESIDENCE AT CARACAS.

four hundred and fifty toises high, but very near the sea, does not secure the inhabitants against a scourge which was believed to belong only to the low regions of the coast.

CHAPTER X I I I .

Abode at Caracas.—Mountains in the vicinity of the Town.—Excursion to the Summit of the Silla.—Indications of Mines.

I REMAINED two months at Caracas, where M. Bonpland and I lived in a large house in the most elevated part of the town. From a gallery we could survey at once the summit of the Silla, the serrated ridge of the Galipano, and the charming valley of the Guayra, the rich culture of which was pleasingly contrasted with I he gloomy curtain of the surrounding mountains. It was in the dry season, and to improve the pasturage, the savannahs and the turf covering the steepest rocks were set on fire. These vast conflagrations, viewed from a distance, produce the most singular effects of light. Wherever the savannahs, following the undulating slope of the rocks, have filled up the furrows hollowed out by the waters, the flame appears in a dark night like currents of lava suspended over the valley. The vivid but steady light assumes a reddish tint, when the wind, descending from the Silla, accumulates streams of vapour in the lowregions.

At other times (and this effect is still more curious) these luminous bands, enveloped in thick clouds, appear only at intervals where it is clear; and as the clouds ascend, their edges reflect a splendid light. These; various phenomena, so common in the tropics, acquire additional interest from the form of the mountains, the direction of the slopes, and the height of the savannahs covered with alpine grasses. During the day, the wind of Petare, blowing from the east, drives the smoke towards the town, and diminishes the transparence of the air.

If we had reason to be satisfied with the situation of our house, we had still greater cause for satisfaction in the reception we met with from all classes of the inhabitants.

Though I have had the advantage, which few Spaniards have

STATE

OF

SOCIETY.

413

shared with me, of having successively visited Caracas, the Havannah, Santa Fé de Bogotá, Quito, Lima, and .Mexico, and of having been connected in these six capitals of Spanish America with men of all ranks, I will not venture to decide on the various degrees of civilization, which society has attained in the several colonies. It is easier to indicate the different shades of national improvement, and the point towards which intellectual development tends, than to compare and class things which cannot all be considered under one point of view.

It appeared to me, that a strong tendency to the study of science prevailed at Mexico and Santa Fé de Bogotá; more taste for literature, and whatever can charm an ardent and lively imagination, at Quito and Lima; more accurate notions of the political relations of countries, and more enlarged views on the state of colonies and their mother-countries, at the Havannah and Caracas. The numerous communications with commercial Europe, with the Caribbean Sea (which we have described as a Mediterranean with many outlets), have exercised a powerful influence on the progress of society in the five provinces of Venezuela and in the island of Cuba. In no other part of Spanish America has civilization assumed a more European character. The great number of Indian cultivators who inhabit Mexico and the interior of New Grenada, impart a peculiar, I may almost say, an exotic aspect, on those vast countries.

Notwithstanding the increase of the black population, we seem to be nearer to Cadiz and the United States, at Caracas and the Havannah, than in any other part of the New World.

When, in the reign of Charles V, social distinctions and their consequent rivalries were introduced from the mothercountry to the colonies, there arose in Cumana and in other commercial towns of Terra Firma, exaggerated pretensions to nobility on the part of some of the most illustrious families of Caracas, distinguished by the designation of los Mantuano. The progress of knowledge, and the consequent change in manners, have, however, gradually and pretty generally neutralized whatever is offensive in those distinctions among the whites. In all the Spanish colonies there exist two kinds of nobility. One is composed of creoles, whose ancestors only from a very recent period filled great stations

414

JEALOUSIES OF RACE.

in America. Their prerogatives are partly founded on the distinction they enjoy in the mother-country ; and they imagine they can retain those distinctions beyond the sea, whatever may be the date of their settlement in the colonies. The other class of nobility has more of an American character.

It is composed of the descendants of the Conquistadores, that is to say, of the Spaniards who served in the army at the time of the first conquest. Among the warriors who fought with Cortez, Losada, and Pizarro, several belonged to the most distinguished families of the Peninsula; others, sprung from the inferior classes of the people, have shed lustre on their names, by that chivalrous spirit which prevailed at the beginning of the sixteenth century. In the records of those times of religious and military enthusiasm, we find, among the followers of the great captains, many simple, virtuous, and generous characters, who reprobated the cruelties which then stained the glory of the Spanish name, but who, being confounded in the mass, have not escaped the general proscription. The name of Conquistadores remains the more odious, as the greater number of them, after having outraged peaceful nations, and lived in opulence, did not end their career by suffering those misfortunes which appease the indignation of mankind, and sometimes soothe the severity of the historian.

But it is not only the progress of ideas, and the conflict between two classes of different origin, which have induced the privileged castes to abandon their pretensions, or at least cautiously to conceal them. Aristocracy in the Spanish colonies has a counterpoise of another kind, the action of which becomes every day more powerful. A sentiment of equality, among the whites, has penetrated every bosom.

Wherever men of colour are either considered as slaves, or as having been enfranchised, that which constitutes nobility is hereditary liberty—the proud boast of having never reckoned among ancestors any but freemen.

In the colonies, the colour of the skin is the real badge of nobility. In Mexico, as well as Peru, at Caracas as in the island of Cuba, a barefooted fellow with a white skin, is often heard to exclaim: " D o e s that rich man think himself whiter than I a m ? " The population which Europe pours into America being very considerable, it may easily be supposed, that the axiom,

NOBILITY

OF

COMPLEXION.

415

every white man is noble' (todo bianco es caballero), must singularly wound the pretensions of many ancient and illustrious European families. But it may be further observed, that the truth of this axiom has long since been acknowledged in Spain, among a people justly celebrated for probity, industry, and national spirit. Every Biscayan calls himself noble; and there being a greater number of Biscayans in America and the Philippine Islands, than in the Peninsula, the whiles of that race have contributed, in no small degree, to propagate in the colonics the system of equality among all men whose blood has not been mixed with that of the African race.

Moreover, the countries of which the inhabitants, even without a representative government, or any institution of peerage, annex so much importance to genealogy and the advantages of birth, are not always those in which family aristocracy is most offensive. W e do not find among the natives of Spanish origin, that cold and assuming air which the character of modern civilization seems to have rendered less common in Spain than in the rest of Europe. Conviviality, candour, and great simplicity of manner, unite the different classes of society in the colonies, as well as in the mother-country. It may even be said, that the expression of vanity and self-love becomes less offensive, when it retains something of simplicity and frankness.

I found in several families at Caracas a love of information, an acquaintance with the masterpieces of French and Italian literature, and a marked predilection for music, which is greatly cultivated, and which (as always results from a taste for the fine arts) brings the different classes of society nearer to each other. The mathematical sciences, drawing, and painting, cannot here boast of any of those establishments with which royal munificence and the patriotic zeal of the inhabitants have enriched Mexico. In the midst of the marvels of nature, so rich in interesting productions, it is strange that we found no person on this coast devoted to the study of plants and minerals. In a Franciscan convent I met, it is true, with an old monk who drew up the almanac for all the provinces of Venezuela, and who possessed some accurate knowledge of astronomy.

Our instruments interested him deeply, and one day our house

416

FIRST PRINTING-OFFICE IN CARACAS.

was filled with all the monks of San Francisco, begging to see a dipping-needle. The curiosity excited by physical phenomena is naturally great in countries undermined by volcanic fires, and in a climate; where nature is at once so majestic and so mysteriously convulsed.

When we remember, that in the United States of North America, newspapers are published in small towns not containing more than three thousand inhabitants, it seems surprising that Caracas, with a population of forty or fifty thousand souls, should have possessed no printing office before 1806; for we cannot give the name of a printing establishment to a few presses which served only from year to year to promulgate an almanac of a few pages, or the pastoral letter of a bishop. Though the number of those who feel reading to be a necessity is not very considerable, even in the Spanish colonies most advanced in civilization, yet it would be unjust to reproach the colonists for a state of intellectual lassitude which has been the result of a jealous policy. A Frenchman, named Delpeche, has the merit of having established the first printing office in Caracas. It appears somewhat extraordinary that an establishment of this kind should have followed, and not preceded, a political revolution.

In a country abounding in such magnificent scenery, and at a period when, nothwithstanding some symptoms of popular commotion, most of the inhabitants seem only to direct attention to physical objects, such as the fertility of the year, the long drought, o r the conflicting winds of Petare and Catia, I expected t o find many individuals well acquainted with the lofty surrounding mountains. But person who had visited the summit of the Silla. Hunters do not ascend so high on the ridges o f mountains; and in these countries journeys are not undertaken for such purposes as gathering alpine plants, carrying a barometer to an elevated point, or examining the nature o f rocks.

Accus-

tomed to a uniform and domestic life, the people dread fatigue and sudden changes o f climate.

T h e y seem to live

not to enjoy life, but only to prolong it.

O u r walks led us often in the direction o f two coffee plantations, the proprietors of which, Don Andres de Ibarra

417

ASCENT OF THE SILLA

and M. Blandir, wore men of agreeable manners. These plantations were situated opposite the Silla de Caracas.

Surveying, by a telescope, the steep declivity of the mountains, and the form of the two peaks by which it is terminated, we could form an idea of the difficulties we should have to encounter in reaching its summit. Angles of elevation, taken with the sextant at our house, had led me to believe that the summit was not so high above sea-level as the great square of Quito. This estimate was far from corresponding with the notions entertained by the inhabitants of the city. .Mountains which command great towns, have acquired, from that very circumstance, an extraordinary celebrity in both continents. Long before they have been accurately measured, a conventional height is assigned to them; and to entertain the least doubt respecting that height is to wound a national prejudice.

The captain-general, Se単or de Guevara, directed the teof Chacao to furnish us with guides to conduct us on our ascent of the Silla.

These guides were negroes, and they knew something of the path leading over the ridge of the mountain, near the western peak of the Silla. This path is frequented by smugglers, but neither the guides, nor the most experienced of the militia, accustomed to pursue the s m u g g l e r s in these wild spots, had been on the eastern peak, forming the most elevated summit of the Silla, During the whole month of December, the mountain (of which the angles of elevation made me acquainted with the effects of the terrestrial refractions) had appeared only five times free of clouds. In this season two serene days seldom succeed each other, and we were therefore advised not to choose a clear day for our excursion, but rather a time when, the clouds not being elevated, we might hope, after having crossed the first layer of vapours uniformly spread, to enter into a dry and transparent air. W e passed the night of the 2d of .January in the Estancia de Gallegos, a plantation of coffee-trees, near which the little river of Chacaito, flowing in a luxuriantly shaded ravine, forms some fine cascades in descending the mountains. The night was pretty clear; and though on the day preceding a fatiguing journey it might have been well to have enjoyed some repose, M .

Bonpland and I passed the whole night in watching three niente

VOL. I.

2 E

418

PUERTA DE LA SILLA.

occultations of the satellites of Jupiter. I had previously determined the instant of the observation, but we missed them all, owing to some error of calculation in the Connaissance des Temps. The apparent time had been mistaken for mean time.

I was much disappointed by this accident; and after having observed at the foot of the mountain the intensity of the magnetic forces, before sunrise, we set out at live in the morning, accompanied by slaves carrying our instruments.

O u r parts consisted of eighteen persons, and we all walked one behind another, in a narrow path, traced on a steep acctivity, covered with turf. We endeavoured first to reach a hill, which towards the south-east seems to form a promontory of the Silla. It is connected with the body of the mountain by a narrow dyke, called by the shepherds the Gate, or Puerto do la Silla. We reached this dyke about seven. The morning was line and cool, and the sky till then seemed to favour our excursion. I saw that the thermometer kept a little below 14° (11 2° Reaum.). The barometer showed that we were already six hundred and eighty-five toises above the level of the sea, that is, nearly eighty toises higher than at the Venta, where we enjoyed so magnificent a view of the coast. Our guides thought that it would require six hours more to reach the summit of the Silla.

We crossed a narrow dykes of rocks covered with turf; which led us from the promontory of the Puerta to the ridge of the great mountain. Here the eye looks down on two valleys, or rather narrow defiles, filled with thick vegetation. On the right is perceived the ravine which descends between the two peaks to the farm of Muñoz; on the left we see the defile of Chacaito, with its waters flowing out near the farm of Gallegos. The roaring of the cascades is heard, while the water is unseen, being concealed by thick groves of erythrina, clusia, and the Indian fig-tree.* Nothing can be more picturesque, in a climate where so many plants have broad, large, shining, and coriaceous leaves, than the aspect of trees when the spectator looks down from a great height above; them, and when they are illumined by the almost perpendicular rays of the sun. * Ficus nymphæifolia, Erythrina mitis. Two fine species of mimosa are found in the same valley ; Inga fastuosa, and I. cinerea.

419

DIFFICULT ASCENT.

From the Puerta de la Silla the steepness of the ascent, increases, and we were obliged to incline our bodies considerably forwards as we advanced. The slope is often from 30째 to 32째.* W e felt the want of cramp-irons, or sticks shod with iron. Short grass covered the rocks of gneiss, and it was equally impossible to hold by the grass, or to form steps as we might have done in softer ground. This ascent, which was attended with more fatigue than danger, discouraged those who accompanied us from the town, and who were unaccustomed to climb mountains. W e lost a great deal of time in waiting for them, and we did not resolve to proceed alone till we saw them descending the mountain instead of climbing up it. The weather was becoming cloudy; the mist already issued in the form of smoke, and in slender and perpendicular streaks, from a small humid wood which bordered the region of alpine savannahs above us. It seemed as if a fire had burst forth at once on several points of the forest. These streaks of vapour gradually accumulated together, and rising above the ground, were carried along by the morning breeze, and glided like a light cloud over the rounded summit of the mountain.

M. Bonpland and I foresaw from these infallible signs, that we should soon be covered by a thick fog; and lest our guides should take advantage of this circumstance and leave us, we obliged those who carried the most necessary instruments to precede us. W e continued climbing the slopes which lead towards the ravine of Chacaito. The familiar loquacity of the Creole blacks formed a striking contrast with the taciturn gravity of the Indians, who had constantly accompanied us in the missions of Caripe. The negroes amused themselves by laughing at the persons who had been in such haste to abandon an expedition so long in preparation ; above all, they did not spare a young Capuchin monk, a professor of mathematics, who never ceased to boast of the superior physical strength and courage pos* Since my experiments on slopes, mentioned at p. 94, I have discovered in the Figure de la Terre of Bouguer, a passage, which shows that this astronomer, whose opinions are of such weight, considered also as the inclination of a slope quite inaccessible, if the nature of the ground did not admit of forming steps with the foot.

2 E 2

420

PEAKS OF THE SILLA.

sesaed by all classes of European Spaniards over those born in Spanish America. He had provided himself with long slips of white paper, which were to be cut, and flung on the savannah, to indicate to those who might stray behind, the direction they ought to follow. The professor had even promised the friars of his order to fire off some rockets, to announce to the whole town of Caracas that we had succeeded in an enterprise which to him appeared of the utmost importance.

H e had forgotten that his long and heavy garments would embarrass him in the ascent. Having lost courage long before the creoles, he passed the rest of the day in a neighbouring plantation, gazing at us through a glass directed to the Silla, as we climbed the mountain.

Unfortunately for us, ho had taken charge of the water and the provision so necessary in an excursion to the mountains.

The slaves, who were to rejoin us, were so long detained by him, that they arrived very late, and we were ten hours without either bread or water.

The eastern peak is the most elevated of the two which form the summit of the mountain, and to this we directed our course with our instruments. The hollow between these two peaks has suggested the Spanish name of Silla (saddle), which is given to the whole mountain.

The narrow defile which we have already mentioned, descends from this hollow toward the valley of Caracas, commencing mar the western dome. The eastern summit is accessible only by going first to the west of the ravine over the promontory of the Puerta, proceeding straight forward to the lower summit; and not turning to the east till the ridge, or the hollow of the Silla between the two peaks, is nearly reached. The general aspect of the mountain points out this path; the rocks being so steep on the east of the ravine that it would be extremely difficult to reach the summit of the Silla by ascending straight to the eastern dome, instead of going by the way of the Puerta.

Prom the foot o f the cascade of Chacaito to one thousand toises of elevation, we found only savannahs. Two small liliaceous plants, with yellow flowers,* alone lift up their heads, among the grasses which cover the rocks. A few * Cypura martinicensis, and Sisyrinchium iridifolium. This last is found also near the Venta of La Guayra, at 600 toises of elevation.

GROVE OF PALM-TREES.

421

brambles* remind us of the form of our European vegetation. W e in vain hoped to find on the mountains of Caracas, and subsequently on the back of the Andes, an eglantine near these brambles. W e did not find one indigenous rose-tree in all South America, notwithstanding the analogy existing between the climates of the high mountains of the torrid zone and the climate of our temperate zone. It appears that this charming shrub is wanting in all the southern hemisphere, within and beyond the tropics. It was only on the Mexican mountains that we were fortunate enough to discover, in the nineteenth degree of latitude, American eglantines.† W e were sometimes so enveloped in mist, that we could not, without difficulty, find our way. At this height there is no path, and we were obliged to climb with our hands, when our feet failed us, on the steep and slippery acclivity.

A vein filled with porcelain-clay attracted our attention. ‡ It is of snowy whiteness, and is no doubt the remains of a decomposed feldspar. I forwarded a considerable portion of it to the intendant of the province. In a country where fuel is not scarce, a mixture of refractory earths may be useful, to improve the earthenware, and even the bricks.

Every time that the clouds surrounded us, the thermometer sunk as low as 12° (to 9 0 ° R.) ; with a serene sky it rose to 21°. These observations were made in the shade, But it is difficult, on such rapid declivities, covered with a dry, shining, yellow turf, to avoid the effects of radiant heat.

W e were at nine hundred and forty toises of elevation; and yet at the same height, towards the east, we perceived in a ravine, not merely a few solitary palm-trees, but a whole grove. I t was the palma real; probably a species of the genus Oreodoxa. This group of palms, at so considerable * Rubus jamaicensis. † M . Rerouté, in his superb work on rose-trees, has given our Mexican eglantine, under the name of Rosier de Montezuma, Montezuma rose. ‡ The breadth of the vein is three feet. This porcelain-clay, when moistened, readily absorbs oxygen from the atmosphere. I found, at Caracas, the residual nitrogen very slightly mingled with carbonic acid, though the experiment was made in phials with ground-glass stoppers, not filled with water.

422

MOUNTAIN SHRUBS.

an elevation, formed a striking contrast with the willows* scattered on the depth of the more temperate valley of Caracas. We here discovered plants of European forms, situated below those of the torrid zone.

After proceeding for the space of four hours across the savannahs, we entered into a little wood composed of shrubs and small trees, called el Pejual; doubtless from the great abundance here of the pejoa (Gaultheria odorata), a plant with very odoriferous leaves.† The steepness of the mountain became less considerable, and we felt an indescribable pleasure in examining the plants of this region. Nowhere, perhaps, can be found collected together, in so small a space, productions so beautiful, and so remarkable in regard to the geography of plants. A t the height of a thousand toises, the lofty savannahs of the hills terminate in a zone of shrubs which, by their appearance, their tortuous branches, their stiff leaves, and the magnitude and beauty of their purple flowers, remind us of what is called, in the Cordilleras of the Andes, the vegetation of the paramos and the punas.‡ We there find the family of the alpine rhododendrons, the thibaudias, the andromedas, the vacciniums, and those befarias with resinous leaves, which we have several times compared to the rhododendron of our European Alps.

Even when nature does not produce the same species in analogous climates, either in the plains of isothermal parallels,§ or on table-lands, the temperature of which re* Salix Humboldtiana of Willdenouw. On the alpine palm-trees, see my Prolegomena de Dist. Plant, p. 2 3 5 . † It is a great advantage of the Spanish language, and a peculiarity which it shares in common with the Latin, that, from the name of a tree, may be derived a word designating an association or group of trees of the same species. Thus are formed the words olirar, robledar, and pinal, from olivo, roble, and pino.

The Hispano-Americans have added tunal, pejual, guayaval, &c, places where a great many Cactuses, Gualtheria odoratas, and Psidiums, grow together. ‡ For the explanation of these words, see p. 178. § We may compare together either latitudes which in the same hemisphere present the same mean temperature (as, for instance, Pennsylvania and the central part of France, Chile and the southern part of New Holland); or we may consider the relations that may exist between the vegetation of the two hemispheres under isothermal parallels.

DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS.

423

sembles that of places nearer the poles,* we still remark a striking resemblance of appearance and physiognomy in the vegetation of the most distant countries. This phenomenon is one of the most curious in the history of organic forms.

I say the history; for in vain would reason forbid man to form hypotheses on the origin of things; he still goes on puzzling himself with insoluble problems relating to the distribution of beings.

A gramen of Switzerland grows on the granitic rocks of the straits of Magellan.† New Holland contains above forty European phanerogamous plants: and the greater number of those plants, which are found equally in the temperate zones of both hemispheres, are entirely wanting in the intermediary or equinoctial region, as well in the plains as on the mountains. A downy-leaved violet, which terminates in some sort the zone of the phanerogamous plants at Teneriffe, and which was long thought peculiar to that island,‡ is seen three hundred leagues farther north, near the snowy summit of the Pyrenees. Gramina and cyperaceous plants of Germany, Arabia, and Senegal, have * The geography of plants comprises not merely an examination of the analogies observed in the same hemisphere ; as between the vegetation of the Pyrenees and that of the Scandinavian plains; or between that of the Cordilleras of Peru and of the coasts of Chile.

It also investigates the relations between the alpine plants of both hemispheres.

It compares the vegetation of the Alleghanies and the Cordilleras of Mexico, with that of the mountains of Chile and Brazil.

Hearing in mind that every isothermal line has an alpine branch (as, for instance, that which connects Upsala with a point in the Swiss Alps), the great problem of the analogy Of vegetable forms may be defined as follows: 1st, examining in each hemisphere, and at the level of the coasts, the vegetation on the same isothermal line, especially near convex or concave summits; 2nd, comparing, with respect to the form of plants, on the same isothermal line north and south of the equator, the alpine branch with that traced in the plains; 3rd, comparing the vegetation on homonymous isothermal lines in the two hemispheres, either in the low regions, or in the alpine regions. † Phleum alpinum, examined by M r . Brown. The investigations of this great botanist prove that a certain number of plants are at once common to both hemispheres.

Potentilla anserina, Prunella vulgaris, Scirpun mucronatus, and Panicum crus-galli, grow in Germany, in Australia, and in Pennsylvania. ‡ The Viola cheiranthifolia has been found by M M . Kunth and Von Buch among the alpine plants which Jussieu brought from the Pyrenees.

421

MIGRATION OF PLANTS.

recognized among those that were gathered by M .

Bonpland and myself on the cold table-lands of Mexico, along the burning shores of the Orinoco, and in the southern hemisphere on the Andes and Quito.* How can we conceive the migration of plants through regions now covered by the ocean? How have the germs of organic life, which resemble each other in their appearance, and even in their internal structure, unfolded themselves at unequal distances from the poles and from the surface of the seas, wherever places so distant present any analogy of temperature? Notwithstanding the influence exercised on the vital functions of plants by the pressure of the air, and the greater or less extinction of light, heat, unequally distributed in different seasons of the year, must doubtless be considered as the most powerful stimulus of vegetation.

The number of identical species in the two continents and in the two hemispheres is far less than the statements of early travellers would lead us to believe.

The lolly mountains of equinoctial America have certainly plantains, valerians, arenarias, ranunculuses, medlars, oaks, and pines, which from their physiognomy we might confound with those of Europe; but they are all specifically different.

When nature does not present the same species, she loves to repeat the same genera. Neighbouring species are often placed at enormous distances from each other, in the low regions of the temperate zone, and on the alpine heights of the equator.

At other times (and the Silla of Caracas affords a striking example of this phenomenon), they are not the European genera, which have sent species to people like colonists the mountains of the torrid zone, but genera of the same tribe, difficult to be distinguished by their appearance, which t a k e t h e place of each other indifferent latitudes. been

The mountains of New Grenada surrounding the tablelands of Bogota are more than two hundred leagues distant from those of Caracas, and yet the Silla, the only elevated peak in the chain of low mountains, presents those singular groupings of befarias with purple flowers, of * Cyperus mucronatus Poa eragrostis, Festuca myurus, Andropogon avenaceus, Lapago racemosa. (See the Nova Genera et Species Plantarum, vol. i. p. xxv.)

DIFFICULTIES OF THE

THEORY.

425

andromedas, of gualtherias, of myrtilli, of uvas camaronas * of nerteras, and of aralias with hoary leaves,t which characterize the vegetation of the paramos on the high Cordilleras of Santa Fé.

W e found the same Thibaudia glandulosa at the entrance of the table-land of Bogotá, and in the Pejual of the Silla. The coast-chain of Caracas is unquestionably connected (by the Torito, the Palomera, Tocuyo, and the paramos of Rosas, of Bocono, and of Niquitao) with the nigh Cordilleras of Merida, Pamplona, and Santa Fé ; but from the Silla to Tocuyo, along a distance of seventy leagues, the mountains of Caracas are so low, that the shrubs of the family of the ericineous plants, just cited, do not find the cold climate which is necessary for their development.

Supposing, as is probable, that the thibaudias and the rhododendron of the Andes, or befaria, exist in the paramo of Niquitao and in the Sierra de Merida, covered with eternal snow, these plants would nevertheless want a ridge sufficiently lofty and long for their migration towards the Silla of Caracas.

The more we study the distribution of organized beings on the globe, the more we are inclined, if not to abandon the ideas of migration, at least to consider them as hypotheses not entirely satisfactory. The chain of the Andes divides the whole of South America into two unequal longitudinal parts. A t the foot of this chain, on the east and West, we found a great number of plants specifically the same.

The various passages of the Cordilleras nowhere permit the vegetable productions of the warm regions to proceed from the coats of the Pacific to the banks of the Amazon. When a peak attains a great elevation, either in the middle of very low mountains and plains, or in the centre of an archipelago heaved up by volcanic fires, its summit is covered with alpine plants, many of which are again found, at immense distances, on other mountains * The names vine-tree, and uvas camaronas, are given in the Andes to plants of the genus Thibaudia, on account of their large succulent fruits.

Thus the ancient botanists gave the name of bear's vine, uva ursi, and vine of Mount Ida (Vitis idæa), to an arbutus and a myrtillus, which belong, like the thibaudia, to the family of the Ericineæ. † Nertera depressa, A l a l i a reticulata, Hedyotis blærioïdes.

426

AMERICAN RHODODENDRONS.

having an analogous climate. Such are the general phenomena of the distribution of plants.

It is now said that a mountain is high enough to enter into the limits of the rhododendrons and the befarias, as it has long been said that such a mountain reached the limit of perpetual snow. In using this expression, it is tacitly admitted, that under the influence of certain temperatures, certain vegetable forms must necessarily be developed. Such a supposition, however, taken in all its generality, is not strictly accurate. The pines of Mexico are wanting on the Cordilleras of Peru. The Silla of Caracas is not covered with the oaks which flourish in New Grenada at the same height. Identity of forms indicates an analogy of climate; but in similar climates the species may be singularly diversified.

The charming rhododendron of the Andes (the befaria) was first described by M. Mutis, who observed it near Pamplona and Santa Fé de Bogotá, in the fourth and seventh degree of north latitude. It was s o little known before our expedition to the Silla. that it was scarcely to be found in any herbal in Europe. The learned editors of the Flora of Peru had even described it under another name, that of acunna. In the same manner as the rhododendron-, of Lapland, Caucasus and the Alps* differ from each other, the two species of befaria we brought from the Silla† are also specifically different from that of Santa Fé and Bogotá.‡ Near the equator the rhododendrons of the Andes§ cover the mountains as far as the highest paramos, at sixteen and seventeen hundred toises of elevation. Advancing northward, on the Silla de Caracas, we find them much lower, a little below one thousand toises. The befaria recently discovered in Florida, in latitude 30° , grows even on hills o f small elevation. Thus in a space of six hundred leagues in latitude, these shrubs descend towards the plains in proportion as their distance * Rhododendron lapponicum, R. caucasicum, R. ferrugineum, and R. hirsutum. † Befaria glauca, B. ledifolia. ‡ Befaria æstuans. and B. resinosa. § Particularly B. æstuans of Mutis, and two new species of the southern hemisphere, which we have described under the name of B. coarctata, and B. grandiflora.

RHODODENDRONS OF EUROPE.

427

from the equator augments. The rhododendron of Lapland grows also at eight or nine hundred toises lower than the rhododendron of the Alps and the Pyrenees. W e were surprised at not meeting with any species of befaria in the mountains of Mexico, between the rhododendrons of Santa Fé and Caracas, and those of Florida.

In the small grove which crowns the Silla, the Befaria ledifolia is only three or four feet high. The trunk is divided from its root into a great many slender and even verticillate branches. The leaves are oval, lanceolate, glaucous on their inferior part, and curled at the edges. The whole plant is covered with long and viscous hairs, and emits a very agreeable resinous smell. The bees visit its fine purple flowers, which are very abundant, as in all the alpine plants, and, when in full blossom, they are often nearly an inch wide.

The rhododendron of Switzerland, in those places where it grows, at the elevation of between eight hundred and a thousand toises. belongs to a climate, the mean temperature of which is + 2° and —1°, like that of the plains of Lapland. In this zone the coldest months are—4°, and — 1 0 ° : the hottest, 12° and 7°. Thermometrical observations, made at the same heights and in the same latitudes, render it probable that, at the Pejual of the Silla, one thousand toises above the Caribbean Sea, the mean temperature of the air is still 17° or 18°; and that the thermometer keeps, in the coolest season, between 15° and 20° in the day, and in the night between 10° and 12°. At the hospital of St. Gothard, situated nearly on the highest limit of the rhododendron of the Alps, the maximum of heat, in the month of August at noon, in the shade, is usually 12° or 13°; in the night, at the name season, the air is cooled by the radiation of the soil down to + 1° or —1 5°. Under the same barometric pressure, consequently at the same height, but thirty degrees of latitude nearer the equator, the befaria of the Silla is often, at noon, in the sun, exposed to a heat of 23° or 24°. The greatest nocturnal refrigeration probably never exceeds 7 .

We have carefully compared the climate, under the influence of which, at different latitudes, two groups of plants of the same family vegetate at equal heights above the level of the sea. The results would have been far different, had we com-

428

AROMATIC SHRUBS.

pared zones equally distant, either from the perpetual snow, or from the isothermal line of 0°.* In the little thicket of the Pejual near the purple-flowered befaria, grows a heath-leaved hedyotis, eight feet high; the eaparosa,† which is a large arborescent hypericum ; a lepidium, which appears identical with that of Virginia; and lastly, lycopodiaceous plaids and mosses, which cover the rocks and roots of the trees. That which gives most celebrity in the country to the little thicket, is a shrub ten or fifteen feet high, of the corymbiferous family. The Creoles call it incense (incienso).‡ Its tough and crenate leaves, as well as the extremities of the branches, are covered with a white wool. It is a new species of Trixis, extremely resinous, the flowers of which have the agreeable odour of storax. This smell is very different from that emitted by the leaves of the Trixis terebinthinacea of the mountains of Jamaica, opposite to those of Caracas. The people sometimes mix the incienso of the Silla with the flowers of the pevetera, another composite plant, the smell of which resembles that of the heliotropium of Peru. The pevetera does not, however, grow on the mountains so high as the zone of the befarias; it vegetates in the valley of Chacao, and the ladies of Caracas prepare from it an extremely pleasant odoriferous wafer.

W e spent a long time in examining the fine resinous and fragrant plants of the Pejual. The sky became more and more cloudy, and the thermometer sank below 11°, a temperature at which, in this zone, people begin to suffer from the cold. Quitting the little thicket of alpine plants, we found ourselves again in a savannah. W e climbed over a part of the western dome, in order to descend into the hollow of the Silla, a valley which separates the two summits of the * The stratum of air, the mean temperature of which is 0°, and which scarcely coincides with the superior limit of perpetual snow, is found in the parallel of the rhododendrons of Switzerland at nine hundred toises; in the parallel of the befarias of Caracas, at two thousand seven hundred toises of elevation. † Vismia caparosa (a loranthus clings to this plant, and appropriates to itself the yellow juice of the vismia); Davallia meifolia, Heracium avilæ-, Aralia arborea, Jacq., and Lepidium virginicum. Two new species of lycopodium, the thyoïdes, and the aristatum, are seen lower downnear the Puerta de la Silla. ‡ Trixis nereifolia of M . Bonpland.

DANGEROUS SITUATION.

429

mountain. W e there had great difficulties to overcome, occasioned by the force of the vegetation. A botanist would not readily guess that the thick wood covering this valley is formed by the assemblage of a plant of the musaceous family.* It is probably a maranta, or a heliconia; its leaves are large and shining; it reaches the height of fourteen o r fifteen feet, and its succulent stalks grow near one another like the stems of the reeds found in the humid regions of the south of Europe.† W e were obliged to cut our way through this forest. The negroes walked before with their cutlasses or machetes. The people confound this alpine scitamineous plant with the arborescent gramina, under the name of carice. W e saw neither its fruit nor flowers. W e are surprised to meet with a monocotyledonous family, believed to be exclusively found in the hot and low regions of the tropics, at eleven hundred toises of elevation; much higher than the andromedas, the thibaudias, and the rhododendron o f the Cordilleras.‡ In a chain o f mountains no less elevated, and more northern (the Blue Mountains of Jamaica), the Heliconia of the parrots and the bihai, rather grow in the alpine shaded situations.§ Wandering in this thick wood of musaceæ or arborescent plants, we constantly directed our course towards the eastern peak, which we perceived from time to time through an opening. On a sudden we found ourselves enveloped in a thick m i s t ; the compass alone could guide u s ; but in advancing northward we were in danger at every step of finding ourselves on the brink of that enormous wall of rocks, which descends almost perpendicularly to the depth of six thousand feet towards the sea. We were obliged to halt.

Surrounded by clouds sweeping the ground, we began to doubt whether we should reach the eastern peak before night. Happily, the negroes who carried our water and provisions, rejoined us, and we resolved to take some refreshment . Our repast did not last long. Possibly the Capuchin father had not thought of the great number of persons who * Scitamineous plants, or family of the plantains.

Arundo donax.

‡ Befaria. § Heliconia psittacorum, and H. bihai. common in the plains of Terra Firma.

These two heliconias are very

430

A SCANTY REPAST.

accompanied us, or perhaps the slaves had made free with our provisions on the way; be that as it may, we found nothing but olives, and scarcely any bread. Horace, in his retreat at Tibur, never boasted of a repast more light and frugal; but clives, which might have afforded a satisfactory meal to a poet, devoted to study, and leading a sedentary life, appeared an aliment by no means sufficiently substantial for travellers climbing mountains. We had watched the greater part o f the night, and we walked for nine hours without finding a single spring. Our guides were discouraged; they wished to go back, and we had great difficulty in preventing them.

In the midst of the mist I made trial of the electrometer of Volta, armed with a smoking match. Though very near a thick wood of heliconias, I obtained very sensible signs of atmospheric electricity. It often varied from positive to negative, its intensity changing every instant. These variations, and the conflict of several small currents of air, which divided the mist, and transformed it into clouds, the borders o f which were visible, appeared to me infallible prognostics of a change in the weather. It was only two o'clock in the afternoon ; we entertained some hope of reaching the eastern summit of the Silla before sunset, and o f re-descending into the valley separating the two peaks, intending there to pass the night, to light a great fire, and to make our negroes construct a hut with the leaves of the heliconia.

We sent off half of o u r servants with orders to hasten the

next morning to meet us, not with olives, but with a supply o f salt beef.

W e had scarcely made these arrangements when the cast wind began to blow violently from the sea. The thermometer rose to 12 5째 It was no doubt an ascending wind, which, by heightening the temperature, dissolved the vapours.

In less than two minutes the clouds dispersed, and the t w o

domes of the Silla appeared to us singularly near.

We

opened the barometer in the lowest part of the hollow that separates the t w o summits, near a little pool o f very muddy

water.

Here, as in the West India Islands, marshy plains are found at great elevations; not because the woody mountains attract the clouds, but because they condense the vapours by the effect of nocturnal refrigeration, occasioned

SUMMIT OF THE SILLA.

431

by the radiation of heat from the ground, and from the parenchyma of the leaves. The mercury was at 21 inches 5 7 lines. W e shaped our course direct to the eastern summit. The obstruction caused by the vegetation gradually diminished; it was, however, necessary to cut down some heliconias; but these arborescent plants were not now very thick or high. The peaks of the Silla themselves, as we have several times mentioned, are covered only with gramina and small shrubs of befaria. Their barrenness, however, is not owing to their height: the limit of trees in this region is four hundred toises higher; since, judging according to the analogy of other mountains, this limit would be found here only at a height of eighteen hundred toises. The absence of large trees on the two rocky summits of the Silla may be attributed to the aridity of the soil, the violence of the winds blowing from the sea, and the conflagrations so frequent in all the mountains of the equinoctial region.

To reach the eastern peak, which is the highest, it is necessary to approach as near as possible the great precipice which descends towards Caravalleda and the coast. The gneiss as far as this spot preserves its lamellar texture and its primitive direction; but where we climbed the summit of the Silla, we found it had passed into granite. Its texture becomes granular; the mica, less frequent, is more unequally spread through the rock. Instead of garnets we met with a few solitary crystals of hornblende. It is, however, not a syenite, but rather a granite of new formation.

We were three quarters of an hour in reaching the summit of the pyramid. This part of the way is not dangerous, provided the traveller carefully examines the stability of each fragment, of rock on which he places his foot. The granite superposed on the gneiss does not present a regular separation into beds: it is divided by clefts, which often cross one another at right angles. Prismatic blocks, one foot wide and twelve long, stand out from the ground obliquely, and appear on the edges of the precipice like enormous beams suspended over the abyss.

Having .arrived at the summit, we enjoyed, for a few minutes only, the serenity of the sky. The eye ranged OVER a vast extent of country: looking down to the north

432

ENORMOUS PRECIPICE.

was the sea, and to the south, the fertile valley of Caracas The barometer was at 20 inches 7 6 lines; the thermometer at 13 7°. W e were at thirteen hundred and fifty toises of elevation. We gazed on an extent of sea, the radius of which was thirty-six leagues. Persons who are affected by looking downward from a considerable height should remain at the centre of the small flat which crowns the eastern summit of the Silla. The mountain is not very remarkable for height: it is nearly eighty toises lower than the Canigou ; but it is distinguished among all the mountains I have visited by an enormous precipice on the side next the sea. The coast forms only a narrow border; and looking from the summit of the pyramid on the houses of Caravalleda, this wall of rocks seems, by an optical illusion, to be nearly perpendicular. The real slope of the declivity appeared to me, according to an exact- calculation, 53° 28'.* The mean slope of the peak of Teneriffe is scarcely 12° 30*.

A precipice of six or seven thousand feet, like that of the Silla of Caracas, is a phenomenon far more rare than is generally believed by those; who cross mountains without measuring their height, their bulk, and their slope. Since the experiments on the fall of bodies, and on their deviation to the south-east, have been resumed in several parts of Europe, a rock of two hundred and fifty toises of perpendicular elevation has been in vain sought for among all the Alps of Switzerland. The declivity of Mont Mane towards the Allée Manche does not even reach an angle of 45° ; though in the greater number of geological works, Mont Mane is described as perpendicular on the south side.

At the Silla of Caracas, the enormous northern cliff is partly covered with vegetation, notwithstanding the extreme steepness of its slope. Tufts of befaria and andromedas appear as if suspended from the rock The little valley which separates the domes towards the south, stretches in the direction of the sea. Alpine plants fill this hollow; and, not confined to the ridge of the mountain, they follow the sinuosities of the ravine. It would seem as if torrents • Observations of the latitude give for the horizontal distance between the foot of the mountain near Caravalleda, and the vertical line passing through its summit, scarcely 1000 toises.

433

DISTANT HORIZON.

were concealed under that fresh foliage ; and the disposition of the plants, the grouping of so many inanimate objects, give the landscape all the charm of motion and of life.

Seven months had now elapsed since we had been on the summit of the peak of Teneriffe, whence we surveyed a space of the globe equal to a fourth part of France. The apparent horizon of the sea is there six leagues farther distant than at the top of the Silla, and yet we saw that horizon, at least for some time, very distinctly. It was strongly marked, and not confounded with the adjacent strata of air. A t the Silla, which is five hundred and fifty toises lower than the peak of Teneriffe, the horizon, though nearer, continued invisible towards the north and northnorth-east. Following with the eye the surface of the sea, which was smooth as glass, we were struck with the progressive diminution of the reflected light. Where the visual ray touched the last limit of that surface, the water was lost among the superposed strata of air. This appearance has something in it very extraordinary. W e expect to see the horizon level with the eye ; but, instead of distinguishing at this height a marked limit between the two elements, the more distant strata of water seem to be transformed into vapour, and mingled with the aerial ocean. I observed the same appearance, not in one spot of the horizon alone, but on an extent of more than a hundred and sixty degrees, along the Pacific, when I found myself for the first time on the pointed rock that commands the crater of Pichincha; a volcano, the elevation of which exceeds that of Mont Blanc* The visibility of a very distant horizon depends, when there isnomirage, upon two distinct things: the quantity of light received on that part of the sea where the visual ray terminates ; and the extinction of the reflected light during its passage through the intermediate strata of air. It may happen, notwithstanding the serenity of the sky and the transparency of the atmosphere, that the ocean is-feebly illuminated at thirty or forty leagues' distance; or that the strata of air nearest the earth may extinguish a great deal of the light, by absorbing the rays that traverse them.

The rounded peak, or western dome of the Silla, con* See Views of Nature, Bohn's edition, p. 3 5 8 .

VOL. I.

2

F

434

EXTENDED PROSPECT

coaled from us the view of the town of Caracas; but we distinguished the nearest houses, the villages of Chacao and Petare, the coffee plantations, and the course of the Rio Guayra, a slender streak of water reflecting a silvery light.

The narrow band of cultivated ground was pleasingly contrasted with the wild and gloomy aspect, of the neighbouring mountains. Whilst contemplating these grand scenes, we feel little regret that the solitudes of the New World are not embellished with the monuments of antiquity.

Hut we could not long avail ourselves of the advantage arising from the position of the Silla, in commanding all the neighbouring summits. While we wen; examining with our glasses that part of the sea, the horizon of which was clearly defined, and the chain of the mountains of Ocumare, behind which begins the unknown world of the Orinoco and the Amazon, a thick fog from the plains rose to the elevated regions, first filling the bottom of the valley of Caracas. The vapours, illumined from above, presented a uniform tint of a milky white. The valley seemed overspread with water, and looked like an arm of the sea, of which the adjacent mountains formed the steep shore. In vain we waited for the slave who carried Ramsden's great sextant.

Eager to avail myself of the favourable state of the sky, I resolved to take a few solar altitudes with a sextant by Troughton of two inches radius. The disk of the sun was half-concealed by the mist. The difference of longitude between the quarter of the Trinidad and the eastern peak of the Silla appears scarcely to exceed 0° 3' 22"*.

Whilst, seated on the rock, I was determining the dip of the needle, I found my hands covered with a species of hairy bee, a little smaller than the honey-bee of the north of Europe.

Those insects make their nests in the ground.

They seldom fly; and, from the slowness of their movement, I should have supposed they were benumbed by the cold of the mountains. The people, in these regions, call them anqelitos (little angels), because they very seldom sting. They are no doubt of the genus Apis, of the division melipones. It has been erroneously affirmed that these • The difference of longitude between the Silla and La Guayra, according to Fidalgo, is 0° 6' 4 0 " .

METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS.

435

bees, which are peculiar to the New World, are destitute of all offensive weapons. Their sting is indeed comparatively feeble, and they use it seldom ; but a person, not fully convinced of the harmlessness of these angelitos, can scarcely divest himself of a sensation of fear. I must confess, that, whilst engaged in my astronomical observations, I was often on the point of letting my instruments fall, when I felt my hands and face covered with these hairy bees. Our guides assured us that they attempt to defend themselves only when irritated by being seized by their legs. I was not tempted to try the experiment on myself.

The dip of the needle at the Silla was one centesimal degree less than in the town of Caracas. In collecting the observations which I made during calm weather and in very favourable circumstances, on the mountains as well as along the coast, it would at first seem, that we discover, in that part of the globe, a certain influence of the heights on the dip of the needle, and the intensity of the magnetical forces; but we must remark, that the dip at Caracas is much greater than could be supposed, from the situation of the town, and that the magnetical phenomena are modified by the p r o x i m i t y o f certain rocks, which c o n s t i t u t e so many particular centres or little systems o f attraction.*

The temperature of the atmosphere varied on the summit of the Silla from eleven to fourteen degrees, according as the weather was calm or windy. Every one knows how difficult it is to verify, on the summit of a mountain, the temperature, which is to serve for the barometric calcula tion. The wind was east, which would seem to prove that the trade-winds, extend in this latitude much higher than fifteen hundred toises. Von Buch had observed that, at the peak of Teneriffe, near the northern limit of the trade-winds, there exists generally at the elevation of one thousand nine hundred toises, a contrary current from the * I have seen fragments of quartz traversed by parallel bands of magnetic iron, carried into the valley of Caracas by the waters descending from the Galipano and the Cerro de Avila.

This banded magnetic ironore, is found also in the Sierra Nevada of Merida.

Between the two peaks of the Silla, angular fragments of cellular quartz are found, covered with red oxide of iron.

They do not act on the needle.

This oxide is of a cinnabar-red colour.

2 F 2

436

DRYNESS OF THE ATMOSPHERE.

west. The Academy of Sciences recommended the men of science who accompanied the unfortunate La Pérouse, to employ small air-balloons for the purpose of ascertaining at sea the extent of the trade-winds within the tropics.

Such experiments are very difficult.

Small balloons do not in general reach the height of the Silla ; and the light clouds which are sometimes perceived at an elevation of three or four thousand toises, for instance, the fleecy clouds, called by the French moutons, remain almost fixed, or have such a slow motion, that it is impossible to judge of the direction of the wind.

During the short space of time that the sky was serene at the zenith, I found the blue of the atmosphere sensibly deeper than on the coasts. It is probable that, in the months of July and August, the difference between the colour of the sky on the coasts and on the summit of the Silla is still more considerable, but the meteorological phenomenon with which M . Bonpland and myself were most struck during the hour we passed on the mountain, was the apparent dryness of the air, which seemed to increase as the fog augmented.

This fog soon became so dense that it would have been imprudent to remain longer on the edge of a precipice of seven or eight

thousand

feet

deep.*

We descended the

eastern dome of the Silla, and gathered in our descent a gramen, which not only forms a new and very remarkable genus, but which, to our great astonishment, we found again some time after on the summit of the volcano of Pichincha, at the distance of four hundred leagues from the Silla, in the southern hemisphere.† The Lichen floridus, so common in the north of Europe, covered the branches of the befaria and the Gualtheria odorata, descending even to the roots of these shrubs. Examining the mosses which cover the rocks of gneiss in the valley between the two peaks, I was surprised at finding real pebbles,—rounded fragments of * I n the direction of north-west the slopes appear more accessible ; and I have been told of a path frequented by smugglers, which leads to Caravalleda, between the two peaks of the Silla. From the eastern peak I took the bearings of the western peak, 64° 4 0 ' S . W . ; and of the houses, which I was told belonged to Caravalleda, 5 5 ° 2 0 ' N . W . † Aegopogon cenchroides.

PREPARATIONS

FOR

THE

DESCENT.

437

quartz.* It may be conceived that the valley of Caracas was once an inland lake, before the Rio Guayra found an issue to the east near Caurimare, at the foot of the hill of Auyamas, and before the ravine of Tipe opened on the west, in the direction of Gatia and Cabo Blanco. But how can we imagine that these waters could ascend as high as the Silla, when the mountains opposite this peak, those of Ocumare, were too low to prevent their overflow into the llanos?

The pebbles could not have been brought by torrents from more elevated points, since there is no height that commands the Silla. Must we admit that they have been heaved up, like all the mountains which border the coast.

It was half after four in the afternoon when we finished our observations. Satisfied with the success of our journey, we forgot that there might be danger in descending in the dark, steep declivities covered by a smooth and slippery turf.

The mist concealed the valley from us ; but we distinguished the double hill of La Puerta, which, like all objects lying almost perpendicularly beneath the eye, appeared extremely near. We relinquished our design of passing the night between the two summits o f the Silla, and having again found the path we had cut through the thick wood of heliconia, we soon arrived at the Pejual, the region of odoriferous and resinous plants. The beauty of the befarias, and their branches covered with large purple flowers, again rivetted our attention. When, in these climates, a botanist gathers plants to form his herbal, he becomes difficult in his choice in proportion to the luxuriance of vegetation. H e casts away those which have been first cut, because they appear less beautiful than those which were out of reach.

Though loaded with plants before quitting the Pejual, we still regretted not having made a more ample harvest. W e tarried so long in this spot, that night surprised us as we entered the savannah, at the elevation of upwards of n i n e hundred toises.

As there is scarcely any twilight in the tropics, we pass suddenly from bright daylight to darkness. The moon was on the horizon ; but her disk was veiled from time to time * Fragments of brown copper-ore were found mixed with these pebbles, at an elevation of 1170 toises.

438

ARRIVAL

AT

THE

VALLEY.

by thick clouds, drifted by a cold and rough wind. Rapid slopes, covered with yellow and dry grass, now seen in shade, and now suddenly illumined, seemed like precipices, the depth of which the eye sought in vain to measure.

We proceeded onwards, in single file, and endeavoured to support ourselves by our hands, lest we should roll down.

The guides, who carried our instruments, abandoned us successively, to sleep on the mountain. Among those who remained with us was a Congo black, who evinced great address, bearing on his head a large dipping-needle : he held it constantly steady, notwithstanding the extreme declivity of the rocks. The fog had dispersed by degrees in the bottom of the valley ; and the scattered lights we perceived below us caused a double illusion. The steeps appeared still more dangerous than they really were ; and, during six hours of continual descent, we seemed to be always equally near the farms at the foot of the Silla. We heard very distinctly the voices of men and the notes of guitars. Sound is generally so well propagated upwards, that in a balloon at the elevation of three thousand toises, the barking of dogs is sometimes heard.* We did not arrive till ten at night at the bottom of the valley. W e were overcome with fatigue and thirst, having walked for fifteen hours, nearly without stopping. The soles of our feet were cut and torn by the asperities of a rocky soil and the hard and dry stalks of the gramina, for we had been obliged to pull off our boots, the soles having become too slippery. On declivities devoid of shrubs or ligneous herbs, which may be grasped by the hand, the danger of the descent is diminished by walking barefoot. In order to shorten the way, our guides conducted us from the Puerta de la Silla to the farm of Gallegos by a path leading to a reservoir of water, called el Tanque.

They missed their way, however ; and this last descent, the steepest of all, brought us near the ravine of Chacaito. The noise of the cascades gave this nocturnal scene a grand and wild character.

W e passed the night at the foot of the Silla. Our friends at Caracas had been able to distinguish us with glasses on * Gay-Lussac's account of his ascent on the 15th of September, 1805.

STRATA OF THE MOUNTAIN.

439

the summit of the eastern peak. They felt interested in hearing the account of our expedition, but they were not satisfied with the result of our measurement, which did not assign to the Silla even the elevation of the highest summit of the Pyrenees.* One cannot blame the national feeling which suggests exaggerated ideas of the monuments of nature, in a country in which the monuments of art are nothing ; nor can we wonder that the inhabitants of Quito and Riobamba, who have prided themselves for ages on the height of Chimborazo, mistrust those measurements which elevate the mountains of Himalaya above all the colossal Cordilleras ?

During our journey to the Silla, and in all our excursions in the valley of Caracas, we were very attentive to the lodes and indications of ore which we found in the strata of gneiss. N o regular diggings having been made, we could only examine the fissures, the ravines, and the land-slips occasioned by torrents in the rainy season. The rock of gneiss, passing sometimes into a granite of new formation, sometimes into mica-slate,†belongs in Germany to the most metalliferous rocks ; but in the New Continent, the gneiss has not hitherto been remarked as very rich in ores worth working. The most celebrated mines of Mexico and Peru are found in the primitive and transition schists, in the trap-porphyries, the grauwakke, and the alpine limestones. In several spots of the valley of Caracas, the gneiss contains a small quantity of gold, disseminated in small veins of quartz, sulphuretted silver, azure copper-ore, and galena ; but it is doubtful whether these different metalliferous substances are not too poor to encourage any attempt at working them. Such attempts were, however, made at the conquest of the province, about the middle of the sixteenth century.

From the promontory of Paria to beyond cape Vela, the early navigators had seen gold ornaments and gold dust, in the possession of the inhabitants of the coast. They penetrated into the interior of the country, to discover whence the * It was formerly believed that the height of the Silk of Caracas scarcely differed from that of the peak of Teneriffe. †Especially at great elevations.

440

MINERAL

WEALTH.

precious metal came ; and though the information obtained in the province of Coro, and the markets of Curiana and Cauchieto,* clearly proved that real mineral wealth was to be found only to the west and south-west of Coro (that is to say, in the mountains near those of New Grenada), the whole province of Caracas was nevertheless eagerly explored.

A governor, newly arrived on that coast, could recommend himself to the Spanish court only by boasting of the mines of his province ; and in order to take from cupidity what was most ignoble and repulsive, the thirst of gold was justified by the purpose to which it was pretended the riches acquired by fraud and violence might be employed. “ Gold,” says Christopher Columbus, in his last letter †to King Ferdinand, “gold is a thing so much the more necessary to your majesty, because, in order to fulfil the ancient prophecy, Jerusalem is to be rebuilt by a prince of the Spanish monarchy. Gold is the most excellent of metals.

What, becomes of those precious stones, which are sought for at the extremities of the globe? They are sold, and are finally converted into gold. With gold we not only do whatever we please in this world, but we can even employ it to snatch souls from Purgatory, and to people Paradise.”

These words bear the stamp of the age in which Columbus lived ; but we are surprised to see this pompous eulogium of riches written by a man whose whole life was marked by the most noble disinterestedness.

The conquest of the province of Venezuela having been begun at its western extremity, the neighbouring mountains of Coro, Tocuyo, and Barquisimeto, first attracted the at* T h e Spaniards found, in 1500, in the country of Curiana (now Coro), little birds, frogs, and other ornaments made of gold. Those who had cast these figures lived at Cauchieto, a place nearer the Rio de la Hacha. I have seen ornaments resembling those described by Peter Martyr of Anghiera (which indicate tolerable skill in goldsmiths' work), among the remains of the ancient inhabitants of Cundinamarca. T h e same art appears to have been practised in places along the coasts, and also farther to the south, among the mountains of New Grenada. † Lettera rarissima data nelle Indie nella isola di Jamaica a 7 Julio del 1503.—“ L e oro è metallo sopra gli altri excellentissimo ; e dell' oro si fanno li tesori e chi lo tiene fa e opera quanto vuole nel mondo, e finalmente aggionge a mandare le anime al Paradiso.”

441

GOLD MINE OF BURIA.

tention of the Conquistadores. These mountains join the Cordilleras of New Grenada (those of Santa Fé, Pamplona la Grita, and Merida) to the littoral chain of Caracas.

It is a land the more interesting in a geognostical point of view, as no map has yet made known the mountainous ramifications which the paramos of Niquitao and Las Rosas send out towards the north-east. Between Tocuyo, Araure, and Barquisimeto, rises the group of the Altar Mountains, connected on the south-east with the paramo of Las Rosas.

A branch of the Altar stretches north-east by San Felipe el Fuerte, joining the granitic mountains of the coast near Porto Cabello. The other branch takes an eastward direction towards Nirgua and Tinaco, and joins the chain of the interior, that of Yusma, Villa de Cura, and Sabana de Ocumare.

The region we have been here describing separates the waters which flow to the Orinoco from those which run into the immense lake of Maracaybo and the Caribbean Sea. It includes climates which may be termed temperate rather than hot ; and it is looked upon in the country, notwithstanding the distance of more than a hundred leagues, as a prolongation of the metalliferous soil of Pamplona. It was in the group of the western mountains of Venezuela, that the Spaniards, in the year 1551, worked the gold mine of Buria,* which was the origin of the foundation of the town of Barquisimeto.† But these works, like many other mines successively opened, were soon abandoned. Here, as in all the mountains of Venezuela, the produce of the ore has been found to be very variable. The lodes are very often divided, or they altogether cease ; and the metals appear only in kidney-ores, and present the most delusive appearances.

It is, however, only in this group of mountains of San Felipe and Barquisimeto, that the working of mines has been continued till the present time. Those o f Aroa, near San

Felipe

el

Fuerte,

situated

in

the

centre o f

a very

insalubrious country, are the only mines which are wrought in the whole capitania-general of Caracas. They yield a small quantity of copper. * Real de Minas de San Felipe de Buria. † Nueva Segovia.

442

MINES OF LOS TEQUES.

Next to the works at Buria, near Barquisimeto, those of the valley o f Caracas, and o f the mountains near the capital, are the most ancient. Francisco Faxardo and his wife Isabella, o f the nation o f the Guaiquerias,* often visited the table-land where the capital of Venezuela is now situated. They had given this table-land the name of Valle de San Francisco ; and having seen some bits of gold in the hands of the natives, Faxardo succeeded, in the year 1560, in discovering the mines of Los Teques,† to the south-west of Caracas, near the group of the mountains of Cocuiza, which separate the valleys of Caracas and Aragua.

It is thought that in the first of these valleys, near Baruta. south of the village of Valle, the natives had made some excavations in veins of auriferous quartz ; and that, when the Spaniards first settled there, and founded the town o f Caracas, they filled the shafts, which had been dry, with water. It is now impossible to ascertain this fact; but it is certain that, long before the Conquest, grains of g o l d were a medium o f e x c h a n g e , I do not say generally,

but among certain nations o f the New Continent. They gave gold tor the purchase o f pearls ; and it does not appear extraordinary, that, after having for a long time picked up grains o f gold in the rivulets, people who had fixed habitations, and were devoted to agriculture, should have tried to trace the auriferous veins in the superior surface o f the soil.

The mines o f Los Teques could not be peaceably w r o u g h t ,

till the defeat of the Cacique Guaycaypuro, a celebrated chief of the Teques, who long contested with the Spaniards the possession of the province of Venezuela.

We have yet to mention a third point to which the attention o f the Conquistadores was called by indications Faxardo and his wife were the founders of the town of the Collado, now called Caravalleda. † Thirteen years later, in 1573, Gabriel de Avila, one of the alcaldes of the new town of Caracas, renewed the working of these mines, which were from that time called the “ Real de Minas de Nuestra Senõra.”

Probably this same Avila, on account of a few farms which he possessed in the mountains adjacent to L a Guayra and Caracas, has occasioned the Gumbre to receive the name of Montaña de Avila. This name has subsequently been applied erroneously to the Silla, and to all the chain which extends towards cape Codera.

ABANDONMENT OF THE MINES.

443

of mines, so early as the end of the sixteenth century. In following the valley of Caracas eastward beyond Caurimare, on the road to Caucagua, we reach a mountainous and woody country, where a great quantity of charcoal is nowmade, and which anciently bore the name of the Province of Los Mariches. In these eastern mountains of Venezuela, the gneiss passes into the state of talc. It contains, as at Salzburg, lodes of auriferous quartz. The works anciently begun in those mines have often been abandoned and resumed.

The mines of Caracas were forgotten during more than a hundred years. But at a period comparatively recent, about the end of the last century, an Intendant of Venezuela, Don Jose Avalo, again fell into the illusions which had flattered the cupidity of the Conquistadores. He fancied that all the mountains near the capital contained great metallic riches. Some Mexican miners were engaged, and their operations were directed to the ravine of Tipe, and the ancient mines of Baruta to the south of Caracas, where the Indians gather even now some little gold-washings. But the zeal which had prompted the enterprise soon diminished, and after much useless expense, the working of the mines of Caracas was totally abandoned. A small quantity of auriferous pyrites, sulphuretted silver, and a little native gold, were found ; but these were only feeble indications ; and in a country where labour is extremely dear, there was no inducement to pursue works so little productive.

We visited the ravine of Tipe, situated in that part of the valley which opens in the direction of Cabo Blanco. Proceeding from Caracas, we traverse, in the direction of the great barracks of San Carlos, a barren and rocky soil. Only a very few plants of Argemone mexicana are to be found. The gneiss appears everywhere above ground. W e might have fancied ourselves on the table-land of Freiberg. W e crossed first the little rivulet of Agua Salud, a limpid stream, which has no mineral taste and then the Rio Garaguata. The road is commanded on the right by the Corro de Avila and the Cumbre ; and on the left, by the mountains of Aguas Negras.

This defile is very interesting in a geological point of view. At this spot the valley of Caracas commu-

444

VEINS

OF

QUARTZ.

nicates, by the valleys of Tacagua and of Tipe, with the coast near Catia. A ridge of rock, the summit of which is forty toises above the bottom of the valley of Caracas, and more than three hundred toises above the valley of Tacagua, divides the waters which flow into the Rio Guayra and towards Cabo Blanco. On this point of division, at the entrance of the branch, the view is highly pleasing. The climate changes as we descend westward. In the valley of Tacagua we found some new habitations, and also conucos of maize and plantains. A very extensive plantation of tuna, or cactus, stamps this barren country with a peculiar character. The cactuses reach the height of fifteen feet, and grow in the form o f candelabra, like the euphorbia o f Africa. They are cultivated for the purpose o f selling their refreshing fruits in the market of Caracas. The variety which has no thorns is called, strangely enough, in the colonies, tuna de Espa単a (Spanish cactus). W e measured, at the same place, magueys or agaves, the long stems o f which, laden with flowers, were forty-four feet high.

However common this plant is become in the south o f Europe, the native of a northern climate is never weary o f admiring the rapid development of a liliaceous plant, which contains at once a sweet juice and astringent and caustic liquids, employed to cauterize wounds.

We found several veins of quartz in the valley of Tipe visible above the soil. They contained pyrites, carbonated iron-ore, traces of sulphuretted silver (glasserz), and grey copper-ore (fahlerz).

The works which had been undertaken, either for extracting the ore, or exploring the nature of its bed, appeared to be very superficial. The earth falling in had filled up those excavations, and we could not judge of the richness of the lobe. Notwithstanding the expense incurred under the intendancy of Don Jose Avalo, the great question whether the province of Venezuela contains mines rich enough to be worked, is yet, problematical.

Though in countries where hands are wanting, the culture of the soil demands unquestionably the first care of the government, yet the example of New Spain sufficiently proves that mining is not always unfavourable to the progress of agriculture. The best-cultivated Mexican

EARTHQUAKES AT

CARACAS.

445

hinds, those which remind the traveller of the most beautiful districts of France and the south of Germany, extend from Silao towards the Villa of Leon : they are in the neighbourhood of the mines of Guanaxuato, which alone furnish a sixth part of all the silver of the New World.

CHAPTER

XIV.

Earthquakes at Caracas.—Connection of those Phenomena with the Volcanic Eruptions of the West India Islands.

ON the evening of the 7th of February we took our departure from Caracas. Since the period of our visit to that place, tremendous earthquakes have changed the surface of the soil. The city, which I have described, has disappeared ; and on the same spot, on the ground fissured in various directions, another city is now slowly rising. The heaps of ruins, which were the grave of a numerous population, are becoming anew the habitation of men. In retracing changes of so general an interest, I shall be led to notice events which took place long after my return to Europe. I shall pass over in silence the popular commotions which have taken place, and the modifications which society has undergone. Modern nations, careful of their own remembrances, snatch from oblivion the history of human revolutions, which is, in fact, the history of ardent passions and inveterate hatred. It is not the same with respect to the revolutions of the physical world. These are described with least accuracy when they happen to be contemporary with civil dissensions. Earthquakes and eruptions of volcanos strike the imagination by the evils which are their necessary consequence. Tradition seizes on whatever is vague and marvellous; and amid great public calamities, as in private misfortunes, man seems to shun that light which leads us to discover the real causes of events, and to understand the circumstances by which they arc attended.

I have recorded in this work all I have been able to

446

SUPPOSED SECURITY OF CARACAS.

collect, and on the accuracy of which I can rely, respecting the earthquake of the 26th of March, 1812. By that catastrophe the town of Caracas was destroyed, and more than twenty thousand persons perished throughout the extent of the province of Venezuela. The intercourse which I have kept up with persons of all classes has enabled me to compare the description given by many eye-witnesses, and to interrogate them on objects that may throw light on physical science in general. The traveller, as the historian of nature, should verity the dates of great catastrophes, examine their connection and their mutual relations, and should mark in the rapid course of ages, in the continual progress of successive changes, those fixed points with which other catastrophes may one day be compared. All epochs are proximate to each other in the immensity of time comprehended in the history of nature. Years which have passed away seem but a few instants ; and the physical descriptions of a country, even when they offer subjects of no very powerful and general interest, have at least, the advantage of never becoming old. Similar considerations, no doubt, led M . de la Condamine to describe in his Voyage Ă l'Equateur, the memorable eruptions of the volcano of Cotopaxi,* which took place long after his departure from Quito. I feel the less hesitation in following the example of that celebrated traveller, as the events I am about to relate will help to elucidate the theory of volcanic reaction, or the influence of a system of volcanos on a vast space of circumjacent territory.

At the time when M. Bonpland and myself visited the provinces of New Andalusia, New Barcelona, and Caracas, it was generally believed that the most eastern parts of those coasts were especially exposed to the destructive effects of earthquakes. The inhabitants of Cumana dreaded the valley of Caracas, on account of its damp and variable climate, and its gloomy and misty sky ; whilst the inhabitants of the temperate valley regarded Cumana as a town whose inhabitants incessantly inhaled a burning atmosphere, and whose soil was periodically agitated by violent commotions.

Unmindful of the overthrow of Riobamba and other very * Those of the 30th of November, tember, 1750.

1744, and of the 3rd of Sep.

INFLUENCE OF VOLCANOS.

447

elevated towns, and not aware that the peninsula of Araya, composed of mica-slate, shares the commotions of the cal­ careous coast of Cumana, well-informed persons imagined they discerned security in the structure of the primitive rocks of Caracas, as well as in the elevated situation of this valley. Religious ceremonies celebrated at La Guayra, and even in the capital, in the middle of the night,* doubtless called to mind the fact that the province of Venezuela had been subject at intervals to earthquakes ; but dangers of rare occurrence are slightly feared. However, in the year 1811, fatal experience destroyed the illusion of theory and of popular opinion. Caracas, situated in the mountains, three degrees west of Cumana, and five degrees west of the volcanos of the Caribbee islands, has suffered greater shocks than were ever experienced on the coast of Paria or New Andalusia.

At my arrival in Terra Firma, I was struck with the con­ nection between the destruction of Cumana on the 14th of December, 1797, and the eruption of the volcanos in the smaller W e s t India Islands. This connection was again manifest in the destruction of Caracas on the 26th of March, 1812. The volcano of Guadaloupe seemed in 1797 to have exercised a reaction on the coasts of Cumana.

Ffteen years later, it was a volcano situated nearer the continent (that of St. Vincent), which appeared to have extended its influence as far as Caracas and the banks of A pure. Possibly, at both those periods, the centre of the explosion was, at an immense depth, equally distant from the regions towards which the motion was propagated at the surface of the globe.

From the beginning of 1811 to 1813, a vast superficies of the earth,† bound by the meridian of the Azores, the valley of the Ohio, the Cordilleras of New Grenada, the coasts of Venezuela, and the volcanos of the smaller W e s t India Islands, was shaken throughout its whole extent, by com* For instance, the nocturnal procession of the 21st of October, insti­ tuted in commemoration of the great earthquake which took place en that day of the month, at one o'clock in the morning, in 1778.

Other very violent shocks were those of 1641, 1703, and 1802. † Between latitudes 5° and 36° North, and З1° and 91° West lon. from Paris.

448

SABRINA ISLAND.

m o t i o n s which m a y b e attributed t o subterranean fires.

T h e f o l l o w i n g series o f p h e n o m e n a seems t o indicate c o m m u n i c a t i o n s at e n o r m o u s distances.

O n t h e 30th of J a n u a r y , 1 8 1 1 , a submarine v o l c a n o b r o k e o u t near the island o f St. M i c h a e l , o n e o f t h e A z o r e s .

A t a place w h e r e t h e sea was sixty f a t h o m s d e e p , a rock made its appearance T h e heaving-up o f the a b o v e t h e surface o f t h e waters. softened crust o f t h e g l o b e appears t o have p r e c e d e d the eruption of flame at the crater, as had already been observed at t h e v o l c a n o s o f J o r u l l o in M e x i c o , a n d o n t h e appearance The new o f t h e little island o f K a m e n i , near S a n t o r i n o . islet o f the A z o r e s was at first a mere shoal ; b u t o n the 15th o f June, an e r u p t i o n , which lasted six days, enlarged its e x t e n t , a n d carried it progressively t o t h e h e i g h t o f fifty toises above the surface o f the sea. This new land, o f which captain Tillard t o o k possession in t h e name o f t h e British g o v e r n m e n t , giving it the name o f Sabrina Island, was nine I t has again, it seems, been hundred toises in diameter. swallowed up b y t h e ocean.

T h i s is t h e third time that submarine volcanos have presented this extraordinary s p e c tacle near t h e island o f St. M i c h a e l ; a n d , as if t h e e r u p t i o n s o f these volcanos were subject t o periodical r e c u r r e n c e , o w i n g t o a certain accumulation o f elastic fluids, the island raised up has appeared at intervals o f n i n e t y - o n e o r n i n e t y two years.* A t t h e t i m e o f t h e appearance o f t h e new island o f Sabrina, t h e smaller W e s t I n d i a I s l a n d s , situated e i g h t hundred leagues south-west o f the A z o r e s , e x p e r i e n c e d frequent earthquakes. More than t w o hundred shocks were felt from t h e m o n t h o f M a y 1 8 1 1 , t o April 1 S 1 2 , at S t .

Vincent ; o n e o f t h e three islands in w h i c h there are still active v o l c a n o s .

T h e commotion was n o t circumscribed to t h e insular portion o f eastern America ; and from the 16th of D e c e m b e r , 1 8 8 1 , till the year 1813, the earth was almost incessantly agitated in the valleys o f the Mississippi, * M a l t e - B r u n , GĂŠographie Universelle.

There is, however, some doubt respecting the eruption of 1628, to which some accounts assign the date of 1638. The rising always happened near the island of St. Michael, though not identically on the same spot. It is remarkable that the small island of 1720 reached the same elevation as the island of

Sabrina in 1811.

449

CENTRES OF VOLCANIC ACTION.

the Arkansas river, and the Ohio. The oscillations were more feeble on the east of the Alleghanies, than to the west of these mountains, in Tennessee and Kentucky. They were accompanied by a great subterranean noise, proceeding from the south-west. In some places between New Madrid and Little Prairie, as at the Saline, north of Cincinnati, in latitude 37° 45', shocks were felt every day, nay almost every hour, during several months. The whole of these phenomena continued from the 16th of December 1811, till the year 1813. The commotion, confined at first to the south, in the valley of the lower Mississippi, appeared to advance slowly northward.

Precisely at the period when this long series of earthquakes commenced in the Transalleghanian States (in the month of December 1811), the town of Caracas felt the first shock in calm and serene weather. This coincidence of phenomena was probably not accidental ; for it must be borne in mind that, notwithstanding the distance which separates these countries, the low grounds of Louisiana and the coasts of Venezuela and Cumana belong to the same basin, that of the Gulf of Mexico. When we consider geologically the basin of the Caribbean Sea, and of the Gulf of Mexico, we find it bounded on the south by the coast-chain of Venezuela and the Cordilleras of Merida and Pamplona; on the east by the mountains of the West India Islands, and the Alleghanies ; on the west by the Andes of Mexico, and the Rocky Mountains; and on the north by the very inconsiderable elevations which separate the Canadian lakes from the rivers which flow into the Mississippi. More than two-thirds of this basin are covered with water.

It is bordered by two ranges of active volcanos ; on the east, in the Carribee Islands, between latitudes 13° and 16°; and on the west in the Cordilleras of Nicaragua, Guatimala, and Mexico, between latitudes 11° and 20°. When we reflect that the great earthquake at Lisbon, of the 1st of November. 1755, was felt almost simultaneously on the coasts of Sweden, at lake Ontario, and at the island of Martinique, it may not seem unreasonable to suppose, that all this basin of the W e s t Indies, from Cumana and Caracas as far as the plains of Louisiana, should be simultaneously agitated by commotions proceeding from the same centre of action.

VOL. I.

2 G

450

COINCIDENT

PHENOMENA.

It is an opinion very generally prevalent o n the coasts of Terra Firma, that earthquakes become more frequent when electric explosions have been during some years rare.

It is supposed to have been observed, at Cumana and at Caracas, that the rains were less frequently attended with thunder from the year 1792 ; and the total destruction of Cumana in 1797, as well as the commotions felt in 1 8 0 0 , 1801, and 1 8 0 2 , at Maracaibo, Porto Cabello, and Caracas, have not failed to be attributed to an accumulation of electricity in the interior of the earth. Persons who have lived long in New Andalusia, or in the low regions of Peru, will admit that the period most t o be dreaded for the frequency of earthquakes is the beginning of the rainy season, which, however, is also the season of thunder-storms. The atmosphere and the state o f the surface o f the globe seem to exercise an influence unknown to us on the changes which take place at great depths ; and I am inclined to think that the connection which it, is supposed has been traced between the absence of thunder-storms and the frequency of earthquakes, is rather a physical hypothesis framed by the half-learned of the country than the result of long experience. The coincidence o f certain phenomena may be favoured by chance. The extraordinary commotions felt almost continually during the space of two years on the banks of the Mississippi and the Ohio, and which corresponded in 1812 with those of the valley of Caracas, were preceded at Louisiana by a year almost exempt from thunder-storms. The public mind was again struck with this phenomenon. We cannot be surprised that there should b e in the native land of Franklin a great readiness t o receive explanations founded on the theory of electricity.

T h e shock felt at Caracas in the m o n t h o f December 1811, was the only one which preceded the terrible catastrophe of the 26th o f March, 1812. T h e inhabitants o f Terra Firma were alike ignorant of the agitations o f t h e volcano in the island o f St. V i n c e n t , and o f those felt in the basin of the Mississippi, where, on the 7th and 8th o f February, 1812, the earth was day and night in perpetual oscillation.

A great drought prevailed at this period in the province o f Venezuela. N o t a single drop o f rain had fallen at Caracas o r in the c o u n t r y to the distance o f ninety

EARTHQUAKE

OF

451

CARACAS.

leagues round, during five months preceding the destruction of the capital. The 26th of March was a remarkably hot day. The air was calm, and the sky unclouded. It was Ascension-day, and a great portion of the population was assembled in the churches. Nothing seemed to presage the calamities of the day. At seven minutes after four in the afternoon the first shock was felt. It was sufficiently forcible to make the bells of the churches toll; and it lasted five or six seconds. During that interval the ground was in a continual undulating movement, and seemed to heave up like a boiling liquid. T h e danger was thought to be past, when a tremendous subterranean noise was heard, resembling the rolling of thunder, but louder and of longer continuance than that heard within the tropics in the time of storms. This noise preceded a perpendicular motion of three or four seconds, followed by an undulatory movement somewhat longer. T h e shocks were in opposite directions, proceeding from north to south, and from east to west. Nothing could resist the perpendicular movement and the transverse undulations. T h e town o f Caracas was entirely overthrown, and between nine and ten thousand of the inhabitants were buried under the ruins of the houses and churches. The procession of Ascension-day had not yet begun to pass through the streets, but the crowd was so great within the churches that nearly three or four thousand persons were crushed by the fall of the roofs. The explosion was most violent towards the north, in that part of the town situated nearest the mountain of Avila and the Silla. The churches of la Trinidad and Alta Gracia, which were more than one hundred and fifty feet high, and the naves of which were supported by pillars of twelve or fifteen feet diameter, were reduced to a mass o f ruins scarcely exceeding five or six feet in elevation. The sinking of the ruins has been so considerable that there now scarcely remain any vestiges of pillars or columns. The barracks, called el Quartel de San Carlos, situated north of the church of la Trinidad, on the road from the c u s t o m - h o u s e o f La Pastora, almost

entirely disappeared. A regiment of under arms, and in readiness to join with the exception of a few men, ruins of the barracks. Nine-tenths

troops of the line, the procession, was, buried beneath the of the fine city of 2 G 2

452

SCENE OF DESOLATION.

Caracas were entirely destroyed. The walls of some houses not thrown down, as those in the street San Juan, near the Capuchin Hospital, were cracked in such a manner as to render them uninhabitable. The effects of the earthquake were somewhat, less violent in the western and southern parts of the city, between the principal square and the ravine of Caraguata. There, the cathedral, supported by enormous buttresses, remains standing.

It is computed that nine or ten thousand persons were killed in the city of Caracas, exclusive of those who, being dangerously wounded, perished several months after, for want of food and proper care. The night of the Festival of the Ascension witnessed an awful scene of desolation and distress. The thick cloud of dust which, rising above the ruins, darkened the sky like a fog, had settled on the ground.

No commotion was felt, and never was a night more calm or more serene, The moon, then nearly at the full, illumined the rounded domes of the Silla, and the aspect of the sky formed a perfect contrast to that of the earth, which was covered with the bodies of the dead, and heaped with ruins.

Mothers were seen bearing in their arms their children, whom they hoped to recall to life. Desolate families were wandering through the city, seeking a brother, a husband, or a friend, of whose fate they were ignorant, and whom they believed to be lost in the crowd. The people pressed along the streets, which could be traced only by long lines of ruins.

All the calamities experienced in the great catastrophes of Lisbon, Messina, Lima, and Riobamba were renewed at Caracas on the fatal 26th o f March, 1812. Wounded persons, buried beneath the ruins, were heard imploring by their cries the help o f the passers-by, and nearly two thousand were dug out. Never was pity more tenderly evinced ; never was it more ingeniously active than in the efforts employed t o save the miserable victims whose groans reached the ear.

Implements for digging and clearing away the ruins were entirely wanting ; and the people were obliged to use their bare hands, t o disinter the living. The wounded, as well as the invalids who had escaped from the hospitals, were laid on the banks of the small river Guayra, where there was no shelter but the foliage of trees. Beds, linen to dress the

RUINS OF THE CITY.

453

wounds, instruments of surgery, medicines, every object of the most urgent necessity, was buried in the ruins. Everything, even food, was wanting ; and for the space of several days water became scarce in the interior of the city. The commotion had rent the pipes of the fountains ; and the falling in of the earth had choaked up the springs that supplied them. To procure water it was necessary to go down to the river Guayra, which was considerably swelled ; and even when the water was obtained vessels for conveying it were wanting.

There was a duty to be fulfilled to the dead, enjoined at once by piety and the dread of infection. It being impossible to inter so many thousand bodies, half-buried under the ruins, commissioners were appointed to burn them : and for this purpose funeral piles were erected between the heaps of ruins. This ceremony lasted several days. Amidst so many public calamities, the people devoted themselves to those religious duties which they thought best fitted to appease the wrath of heaven. Some, assembling in processions, sang funeral hymns ; others, in a state of distraction, made their confessions aloud in the streets. In Caracas was then repeated what had been remarked in the province of Quito, after the tremendous earthquake of 1797 ; a number of marriages were contracted between persons who had neglected for many years to sanction their union by the sacerdotal benediction. Children found parents, by whom they had never till then been acknowledged ; restitutions were promised by persons who had never been accused of fraud ; and families who had long been at enmity were drawn together by the tie of common calamity. But if this feeling seemed to calm the passions of some, and open the heart to pity, it had a contrary effect on others, rendering them more rigorous and inhuman. In great calamities vulgar minds evince less of goodness than of energy. Misfortune acts in the same manner as the pursuits of literature and the study o f nature ; the happy influence of which is felt only by a few, giving more ardour to sentiment, more elevation to the thoughts, and increased benevolence to the disposition.

Shocks as violent as those which in about the space of a

454

LINE OF COMMOTION.

minute;* overthrew the city o f Caracas, could not b e c o n fined t o a small portion o f the c o n t i n e u t . Their fatal effects extended as far as the provinces o f Venezuela, Varinas, and Maracaibo, along the coast ; and especially to the inland mountains.

La G u a y r a , Mayquetia, A n t i m a n o , Baruta, La V e g a , San F e l i p e , and M e r i d a , were almost entirely d e stroyed. T h e n u m b e r o f t h e dead e x c e e d e d four o r five thousand at La G u a y r a , and at the t o w n o f San Felipe, near the c o p p e r - m i n e s o f A r o a .

I t would appear that o n a line r u n n i n g E . N . E . and W . S . W . from L a G u a y r a a n d Caracas t o the lofty mountains o f Niquitao and Merida, the violence o f the earthquake was principally directed.

It was felt in the k i n g d o m o f N e w G r e n a d a from the branches o f the high Sierra de Santa M a r t h a † as far as Santa Fé de B o g o t á and H o n d a , o n the banks o f the M a g d a l e n a , o n e hundred and eighty leagues from Caracas.

It was everywhere m o r e violent in the Cordilleras o f gneiss and mica-slate, o r i m m e diately at their base, than in the plains ; and this difference was particularly striking in the savannahs o f Varinas and Casanara.‡ In the valleys of Aragua, between Caracas and the t o w n o f San Felipe, the c o m m o t i o n s were very slight ; and L a Victoria. Maracay, and Valencia, scarcely suffered at all, notwithstanding their proximity t o t h e capital.

At Valecillo, a few leagues from Valencia, the y a w n i n g earth threw o u t such an immense quantity o f water, that it formed a n e w t o r r e n t . T h e same p h e n o m e n o n took place near Porto-Cabello.§ O n the other band, the lake o f Maracaibo diminished sensibly.

A t C o r o n o c o m m o t i o n was felt, t h o u g h the t o w n is situated on the coast, b e t w e e n other t o w n s which suffered from the earthquake. F i s h e r m e n , w h o * The duration of the earthquake, that is to say the whole of the movements of undulation and rising (undulacion y trepidacion), which occasioned the horrible catastrophe of the 26th of March, 1812, was estimated by some at 5 0 " , by others at 1' 1 2 " . † As far as Villa de Los Remedios, and even to Carthagena. ‡ This is easily explained according to the system of those geologists who are of opinion that all chains of mountains, volcanic and not volcanic, have been formed by being raised up, as if through crevices. § It is asserted that, in the mountains of Aroa, the ground, immediately after the great shocks, was found covered with a very fine and white earth, which appeared to have been projected through crevices.

VOLCANIC FOCUS.

455

had passed the day of the 26th of March in the island of Orchila, thirty leagues north-east of La Guayra, felt no shock. These differences in the direction and propagation of the shock, are probably owing to the peculiar position of the stony strata.

Having thus traced the effects of the earthquake to the west of Caracas, as far as the snowy mountains of Santa Martha, and the table-land of Santa Fé de Bogota, we will proceed to consider their action on the country eastward of the capital. T h e commotions were very violent beyond Caurimare, in the valley of Capaya, where they extended as far as the meridian of Cape Codera : but it is extremely remarkable that they were very feeble on the coasts of Nueva Barcelona, Cumana, and Paria ; though these coasts are the continuation of the shore of La Guayra, and were formerly known to have been often agitated by subterranean commotions. Admitting that the destruction of the four towns of Caracas, La Guayra, San Felipe, and Merida, may be attributed to a volcanic focus situated under or near the island of St. Vincent, we may conceive that the motion might have been propagated from north-east to south-west in a line passing through the islands o f Los Hermanos, near Blanquilla, without touching the coasts of Araya, Cumana, and Nueva Barcelona. This propagation of the shock might even have taken place without any commotion having been felt at the intermediate points on the surface of the globe (the Hermanos Islands for instance). This phenomenon is frequently remarked at Bern and Mexico, in earthquakes which have followed during ages a fixed direction. The inhabitants of the Andes say, speaking of an intermediary tract o f ground, not affected by the general commotion, “ that it forms a bridge” (que hace puente) : as if they mean to indicate by this expression that the undulations are propagated at an immense depth under an inert rock.

At Caracas, fifteen or eighteen hours after the great catastrophe, the earth was tranquil. The night, as has already been observed, was fine and calm ; and t h e commotions did

not recommence till after the 27th. They were then attended by a very loud and long continued subterranean noise (bramido). The inhabitants of the destroyed city wandered into the country ; but the villages and farm's

456

SINKING

OF

MOUNTAINS.

having suffered as much as the town, they could find no shelter till they were beyond the mountains of los Toques, in the valleys of Aragua, and in the llanos or savannahs.

No less than fifteen oscillations were felt in one day. On the 5th of A p r i l there was almost as violent an earthquake as that which overthrew the capital. During several hours the ground was in a state of perpetual undulation. Large heaps of earth fell in the mountains ; and enormous masses of rock were detached from the Silla of Caracas. It was even asserted, and this opinion prevails still in the country, that the two domes of the Silla sunk fifty or sixty toises ; but this statement is not founded on any measurement.

I am informed that, in like manner, in the province of Quito, the people, at every period of great commotions, imagine that the volcano of Tunguragua diminishes in height. It has been affirmed, in many published accounts of the destruction of Caracas, that the mountain of the Silla is an extinguished volcano ; that a great quantity of volcanic substances are found on the road from La Guayra to Caracas ; that the rocks do not present any regular stratification ; and that everything bears the stamp of the action of fire. It has even been stated that twelve years prior to the great catastrophe, M. Bonpland and myself had, from our own observations, considered the Silla as a very dangerous neighbour to the city of Caracas, because the mountain contained a great quantity of sulphur, and the commotions must come from the north-east. I t is seldom that observers of nature have to justify themselves for an accomplished prediction; but I think it my duty to oppose ideas which are too easily adopted on the local causes of earthquakes.

In all places where the soil has been incessantly agitated for whole months, as at .Jamaica in 1693, Lisbon in 1755, Cumana in 1766, and Piedmont in 1808, a volcano is expected to open. People forget that we must seek the focus or centre of action, far from the surface of the earth ; that, according to undeniable evidence, the undulations are propagated almost at the same instant across seas of immense depth, at the distance of a thousand leagues ; and that the greatest commotions take place not at the foot of active volcanos, but in chains of mountains composed of the most heterogeneous rocks. In our geognostical observation of

VOLCANIC

FORMATIONS.

457

the country round Caracas we found gneiss, and mica-slate containing beds of primitive limestone. The strata are scarcely more fractured or irregularly inclined than near Freyburg in Saxony, or wherever mountains of primitive formation rise abruptly to great heights. I found at Caracas neither basalt nor dorolite, nor even trachytes or trap-porphyries ; nor in general any trace of an extinguished volcano, unless we choose to regard the diabases of primitive gr端nstein, contained in gneiss, as masses of lava, which have filled up fissures. These diabases are the same as those of Bohemia, Saxony, and Franconia;* and whatever opinion may be entertained respecting the ancient causes of the oxidation of the globe at its surface, all those primitive mountains, which contain a mixture of hornblende and feldspar, either in veins or in balls with concentric layers, will not, I presume, be called volcanic formations. Mont Blanc and Mont d'Or will not be ranged in one and the same class. Even the partisans of the Huttonian or volcanic theory make a distinction between the lavas melted under the mere pressure of the atmosphere at the surface of the globe, and those layers formed by fire beneath the immense weight of the ocean and superincumbent rocks. They would not confound Auvergne and the granitic valley of Caracas in the same denomination ; that of a country of extinct volcanos.

I never could have pronounced the opinion, that the Silla and the Cerro de Avila, mountains of gneiss and mica-slate, were in dangerous proximity to the city of Caracas because they contained a great quantity of pyrites in subordinate beds of primitive limestone. But I remember having said, during my stay at Caracas, that the eastern extremity of Terra Firma appeared, since the great earthquake of Quito, in a state of agitation, which warranted apprehension that the province of Venezuela would gradually be exposed to violent commotions. I added, that when a country had been long subject to frequent shocks, new subterranean communications seemed to open with neighbouring countries; and that the volcanos of the West India Islands, * These gr端nsteins are found in Bohemia, near Pilsen, in granite ; in Saxony, in the mica-slates of Scheenberg ; in Franconia, between Steeben and Lauenstein, in transition-slates.

458

SUBTERRANEAN THUNDER.

lying in the direction of the Silla, north-east of the city, were perhaps the vents, at the time of an eruption, for those elastic fluids which cause earthquakes on the coasts of the continent. These considerations, founded on local knowledge of the place, and on simple analogies, are very far from a prediction justified by the course of physical events.

On the 30th of April, 1812, whilst violent commotions were felt simultaneously in the valley of the Mississippi, in the island of St. Vincent, and in the province of Venezuela, a subterranean noise resembling frequent discharges of large cannon was heard at Caracas, at Calabozo (situated in the midst of the steppes), and on the borders of the Rio Apure, over a superficies of four thousand square leagues.

This noise began at two in the morning. It was accompanied by no shock ; and it is very remarkable, that it was as loud on the coast as at the distance of eighty leagues inland.

It was everywhere believed to be transmitted through the air ; and was so far from being thought a subterranean noise, that in several places, preparations were made for defence against an enemy, who seemed to be advancing with heavy artillery. Se単or Palacio, crossing the Rio Apure below the Orivante, near the junction of the Rio Nula, was told by the inhabitants, that the firing of cannon had been heard distinctly at the western extremity of the province of Varinas, as well as at the port of La Guayra to the north of the chain of the coast.

The day on which the inhabitants of Terra Firma were alarmed by a subterranean noise was that of the great eruption of the volcano in the island of St. Vincent. That mountain, near five hundred toises high, had not thrown out lava since the year 1718.

Scarcely was any smoke perceived to issue from it. when, In the month of .May 1811, frequent shocks announced that the volcanic fire was either rekindled, o r directed anew to that part of the West, Indies.

The first eruption did not take place till the 27th of April, 1812, at noon. It was merely an ejection of ashes, but attended with a tremendous noise. O n the 30th, the lava overflowed the brink o f the crater, and, after a course of four hours, reached the sea. The sound of the explosion is described as resembling that of alternate discharges of very large cannon and musketry ; and it is worthy of re-

SHOCKS AT SEA.

459

mark, that it seemed much louder to persons out at sea, and at a great distance from land, than to those within sight of land, and near the burning volcano.

The distance in a straight line from the volcano of St. Vincent to the Rio Apure, near the mouth of the Nula, is two hundred and ten leagues.* The explosions were consequently heard at a distance equal to that between Vesuvius and Paris. This phenomenon, in conjunction with a great number of facts observed in the Cordilleras of the Andes, shows that the sphere of the subterranean activity of a volcano is much more extensive than we should be disposed to admit, if we judged merely from the small changes effected at the surface of the globe. The detonations heard during whole days together in the New World, eighty, one hundred, or even two hundred leagues distant from a crater, do not reach us by the propagation of the sound through the air ; they are transmitted by the earth, perhaps in the very place where we happen to be. If the eruptions of the valcano of St. Vincent, Cotopaxi, or Tunguragua, resounded from afar, like a cannon of immense magnitude, the noise ought t o increase in the inverse ratio of the distance : but observations prove, that this augmentation does not take place. I must further observe, that M. Bonpland and I going from Guayaquil to the coast of Mexico, crossed latitudes in the Pacific, where the crew of our ship were dismayed by a hollow sound coming from the depth of the ocean, and transmitted by the waters. At that time a new eruption of Cotopaxi took place, but we were as far distant from the volcano, as Etna from the city of Naples.

The little town of Honda, on the banks of the Magdalena, is not less than one hundred and forty-five leagues†from Cotopaxi ; and yet, in the great explosions of this volcano, in 1744, a subterranean noise was heard at Honda, and supposed to be discharges of heavy artillery. The monks of San Francisco spread a report that the town of Carthagena was besieged and bombarded by the English ; and the intelligence was believed throughout the country. Now * Where the contrary is not expressly stated, nautical leagues of twenty to a degree, or two thousand eight hundred and fifty-five toises, are always to he understood. †This is the distance from Vesuvius to Mont Blanc.

460

VOLCANIC SYSTEMS.

the volcano of Cotopaxi is a cone, more than one thousand eight hundred toises above the basin of Honda, and it rises from a table-land, the elevation of which is more than one thousand five hundred toises above the valley of the Magdalena. In all the colossal mountains of Quito, of the province of los Pastos, and of Popayan, crevices and valleys without number intervene. It cannot be admitted, under these circumstances, that the noise was transmitted through the air, or over the surface of the globe, and that it came from the point at which the cone and crater of Cotapaxi are situated. It appears probable, that the more elevated part of the kingdom of Quito and the neighbouring Cordilleras, far from being a g r o u p o f distinct volcanoes, constitute a single swollen mass, an enormous volcanic wall, stretching from south to north, and the crest of which presents a superficies of more than six hundred square leagues. Cotopaxi, Tunguragua, Antisana, and Pichincha, are on this same raised ground. They have different names, but they are merely separate summits of the same volcanic mass. The fire issues sometimes from one, sometimes from another of these summits. The obstructed craters appear to be extinguished volcanos ; but we may presume, that, while Cotopaxi or Tunguragua have only o n e

or two eruptions in the course of a century, the fire is not less continually active under the town o f Quito, under Pichincha and Imbabura.

Advancing northward we find, between the volcano of Cotopaxi and the town of Honda, two other systems of volcanic mountains, those of los Pastos and of Popayan.

The connection between these systems was manifested in

the Andes by a phenomenon which I have already had occasion to notice, in speaking of the last destruction of Cumana. In the month of November 1796 a thick column of smoke began to issue from the volcano o f Pasto, west of the t o w n of t hat name, and near the valley of Rio Guaytara.

The mouths of the volcano .are lateral, and situated on its western declivity, y e t during three successive months the column o f smoke rose so much higher than the ridge of the mountain that it was constantly visible to the inhabitants of the town of Pasto. They described to us their astonishment when, on the 4th of February, 1797, they observed the

VOLCANIC REACTIONS.

461

smoke disappear in an instant, whilst no shock whatever was felt. A t that very moment, sixty-five leagues southward, between Chimborazo, Tunguragua, and the Altar (Capac-Urcu), the town of Riobamba was overthrown by the most terrible earthquake on record. Is it possible to doubt, from this coincidence of phenomena, that the vapours issuing from the small apertures or ventanillas of the volcano of Pasto hud an influence on the pressure of those elastic

fluids which convulsed the earth in the kingdom of Quito, and destroyed in a few minutes thirty or forty thousand inhabitants ?

To explain these great effects of volcanic reactions, and to prove that the group or system of the volcanos of the West India Islands may sometimes shake the continent, I have cited the Cordillera of the Andes. Geological reasoning can be supported only by the analogy of facts which are recent, and consequently well authenticated : and in what other region of the globe could we find greater and more varied volcanic phenomena than in that double chain of mountains heaved up by fire ? in that land where nature has covered every mountain and every valley with her marvels ?

If we consider a burning crater only as an isolated phenomenon, if we be satisfied with merely examining the mass of stony substances which it has thrown up, the volcanic action at the surface of the globe will appear neither very powerful nor very extensive. But the image of this action becomes enlarged in the mind when we study the relations which link together volcanos of the same group; for instance, those of Naples aud Sicily, of the Canary Islands,* of the * I have already observed (p. 113) that the whole group of the Canary Islands rises, as we may say, above one and the same submarine volcano. Since the sixteenth century, the fire of this volcano has burst forth alternately in Palma, Teneriffe, and Lancerote. Auvergne presents a whole system of volcanos, the action of which has now ceased ; but in the middle of a system of active volcanos, for instance, in that of Quito, we must not consider as an extinguished volcano a mountain, the crater of which is obstructed, and through which the subterraneous fire has not issued for ages. E t n a , the Æolian Isles, Vesuvius, and Epomeo ; the peak of Teyde, Palma, and Lancerote ; St. Michael, L a Caldiera of Fayal, and Pico ; St. Vincent, St. Lucia, and Guadaloupe ; Orizava, Popocatepetl, Jorullo, and L a C o l i m a ; Bombacho, the volcano of G r e pada, Telica, Momotombo, Isalco, and the volcano of Guatimala ;

462

SIMULTANEOUS ACTION.

Azores, o f the Caribbee islands o f Mexico , o f Guatimala, and o f the table­land o f Quito ; when we examine either the reactions o f these different systems o f vo lcano s o n one another, o r the distance at which, by subterranean co mmu­ nication, they simultaneo usly co nvulse the earth.

The study o f vo lcano s may be divided into two distinct branches ; o ne, simply mineralo gical, is directed to the exa­ mination o f the sto ny strata, altered o r pro duced by the action o f fire ; fro m the fo rmatio n o f the trachytes o r trap­ porphyries, o f basalts, phonolites, and do lerites, to the mo st recent lavas : the o ther branch, less accessible and mo re neglected, co mprehends the physical relatio ns which link volcanos to gether, the influence o f o ne volcanic system o n another, the co nnectio n existing between the actio n o f burning mo untains and the commotions which agitate the earth at great distances, and during lo ng intervals, in the same directio n. This study canno t pro gress till the vario us epochs o f simultaneo us actio n, the direction, the extent, and the fo rce o f the co nvulsio ns are carefully no ted ; till we have attentively o bserved their pro gressive advance to regio ns which they had no t previously reached ; and the co incidence between distant vo lcanic eruptio ns and those no ises which the inhabitants o f the Andes very expressively term subter­

raneous thunders, or roarings.* All these o bjects are com­ prehended in the do main o f the histo ry o f nature.

Though the narro w circle within which all certain tradi­ tions are confined, do es no t present any o f tho se general revolutions which have heaved up the Cordilleras and buried

myriads o f pelagian animals ; yet Nature, acting under o ur eyes, nevertheless exhibits vio lent tho ugh partial changes, the study o f which may thro w light o n the mo st remo te epochs.

In the interior o f the earth tho se mysterio us po wers

exist, the effects o f which are manifested at the surface by the production o f vapo urs, o f incandescent sco riæ o f new volcanic ro cks and thermal springs, by the appearance o f Cotopaxi, Tunguragua, Pichincha, Antisana, and Sangai, belo ng to the sаme system o f burning vo lcano s ; they are generally ranged in ro ws, as if they had issued fro m a crevice, o r vein no t filled up ; and, it is very remarkable, that their po sitio n is in some parts in the general directio n of the Co rdilleras, and in others in a contrary directio n. * Bramido s у truenos subterraneos.

PERIODS OF TRANQUILLITY.

463

new islands and mountains, by commotions propagated with the rapidity of an electric shock, finally by those subterranean thunders,* heard during whole months, without shaking the earth, in regions far distant from active volcanos.

In proportion as equinoctial America shall increase in culture and population, and the system of volcanos of the central table-land of Mexico, of the Caribbee Islands, of Popayan, of los Pastos, and Quito, shall be more attentively observed, the connection of eruptions and of earthquakes, which precede and sometimes accompany those eruptions, will be more generally recognized. The volcanos just mentioned, particularly those of the Andes, which rise above the enormous height of two thousand five hundred toises, present great advantages for observation. The periods of their eruptions are singularly regular.

They remain thirty or forty years without emitting scoriæ, ashes, or even vapours. I could not perceive the smallest trace of smoke on the summit of Tunguragua or Cotopaxi. A gust of vapour issuing from the crater of Mount Vesuvius scarcely attracts the attention of the inhabitants of Naples, accustomed to the movements of that little volcano, which throws out scoriæ sometimes during two or three years successively. Thence it becomes difficult to judge whether the emission of scoriæ may have been more frequent at the time when an earthquake has been felt in the Apennines. On the ridge of the Cordilleras everything assumes a more decided character. An eruption of ashes, which lasts only a few minutes, is often followed by a calm of ten years. In such circumstances it is easy to mark the periods, and to observe the coincidence of phenomena.

If, as there appears to be little reason to doubt, that the destruction of Cumana in 1797, and of Caracas in 1812, indi* In the town of Guanaxuato, in Mexico, these thunders lasted from the 9th of January till the 12th of February, 1784. Guanaxuato is situated forty leagues north of the volcano of Jorullo, and sixty leagues north west of the volcano of Popocatepetl. In places nearer these two volcanos, three leagues distant from Guanaxuato. the subterranean thunders were not heard. The noise was circumscribed within a very narrow space, in the region of a primitive schist, which approaches a transition-schist, containing the richest silver mines of the known world, and on which rest trap-porphyries, slates, and diabasis (grü nstein.)

464

VOLCANIC

ISLANDS.

cate the influence of the volcanos of the West India Islands* on the commotions felt on the coasts of Terra Firma, it may be desirable, before we close this chapter, to take a cursory view of this Mediterranean archipelago. The volcanic islands form one-fifth of that great arc extending from the coast of Paria to the peninsula of Florida. Running from south to north, they close the Caribbean Sea on the eastern side, while the greater West India Islands appear like the remains of a group of primitive mountains, the summit of which seems to have been between Cape Abacou, Point Morant, and the Copper Mountains, in that part where the islands of St. Domingo, Cuba, and Jamaica, are nearest to each other. Considering the basin of the Atlantic as an immense valley † which separates the two continents, and where, from 20° south to 30° north, the salient angles (Brazil and Senegambia) correspond to the receding angles (the gulf of Guinea and the Caribbean Sea), we are led to think that the latter sea owes its formation to the action of currents, which, like the current of rotation now existing, have flowed from cast to west ; and have given * The following is the series of the phenomena : — 27th of September, 1796.

Eruption in the West India Islands.

(Volcano of Guadaloupe).

November, 1796. The volcano of Pasto began to emit smoke.

14th of December, 1796.

Destruction of Cumana.

4th of February, 1797.

Destruction of Riobamba.

30th of January, 1811. Appearance of Sabrina Island, in the Azores.

The island enlarged very considerably on the 15th of June, 1811.

May, 1811. Commencement of the earthquakes in the island of St. Vincent, which lasted till May 1812.

16th of December, 1811. Commencement of the commotions in the valley of the Mississippi and the Ohio, which lasted till 1813.

December, 1811.

Earthquake at Caracas.

26th of March, 1811. Destruction of Caracas. Earthquakes, which continued till 1813.

30th of April, 1811. Eruption of the volcano in St. Vincent ; and the same day subterranean noises at Caracas, and on the banks of the Apure. † The valley is narrowest (300 leagues) between Cape St. Roque and Sierra Leone.

Proceeding toward the north along the coasts of the New Continent, from its pyramidal extremity, or the Straits of Magellan, we imagine we recognise the effects of a repulsion directed first toward the north-east, then toward the north-west, and finally again to the northeast.

VOLCANIC

465

RANGES.

the southern coast of Porto Rico, St. Domingo, and the island of Cuba their uniform configuration. This supposition of an oceanic irruption has been the source of two other hypotheses on the origin of the smaller West India Islands.

Some geologists admit that the uninterrupted chain of islands from Trinidad to Florida exhibits the remains of an ancient chain of mountains. They connect this chain sometimes with the granite of French Guiana, sometimes with the calcareous mountains of Pari. Others, struck with the difference of geological constitution between the primitive mountains of the Greater and the volcanic cones of the Lesser Antilles, consider the latter as having risen from the bottom of the sea.

I f we recollect that volcanic upheavings, when they take place through elongated crevices, usually take a straight direction, we shall find it difficult to judge from the disposition of the craters alone, whether the volcanos have belonged to the same chain, or have always been isolated.

Supposing an irruption of the ocean to take place either into the eastern part of the island of Java* or into the Cordilleras of Guatemala and Nicaragua, where so many burning mountains form but one chain, that chain would be divided into several islands, and would perfectly resemble the Caribbean Archipelago. The union of primitive formations and volcanic rocks in the same range of mountain is not extraordinary ; it is very distinctly seen in my geological sections of the Cordillera of the Andes. The trachytes and basalts of Popayan are separated from the system of the volcanos of Quito by the mica-slates of Almaguer ; the volcanos of Quito from the trachytes of Assuay by the gneiss of Condorasta and Guasunto. There does not exist a real chain of mountains running south-east and north-west from Oyapoc to the mouths of the Orinoco, and of which the smaller West India Islands might be a northern prolongation The granites of Guiana, as well as the hornblende-slates, which I saw near Angostura, on the banks of the Lower Orinoco, belong to the mountains of Pacaraimo and of * Raffles, History of Java, 1817, pp. 2 3 — 2 8 . The principal line of the volcanos of Java, on a distance of 160 leagues, runs from west to east, through the mountains of Gagak, GedÊ, Tankuban-Prahu, Ungarang, Merapi, Lawu, Wilis, Arjuna, Dasar, and Tashem.

VOL.

I.

2H

466

CONNEXION OF VOLCANOS.

Parime, stretching from west to east,* in the interior of the continent, and not in a direction parallel with the coast, between the mouths of the river Amazon and the Orinoco.

But though we find no chain of mountains at the northeast extremity of Terra Firma, having the same direction as the archipelago of the smaller West India Islands, it does not therefore follow that the volcanic mountains of the archipelago may not have belonged originally to the continent, and formed a part of the littoral chain of Caracas and Cumana.† In opposing the objections of some celebrated naturalists, I am far from maintaining the ancient contiguity of all the smaller West India Islands. I am rather inclined to consider them as islands heaved up by fire, and ranged in that regular line, of which we find striking examples in so many volcanic hills in Auvergne, in Mexico, and in Peru.

The geological constitution of the Archipelago appears, from the little we know respecting it, to be very similar to that of the Azores and the Canary Islands. Primitive formations are nowhere seen above ground ; we find only what belongs unquestionably to volcanos : feldspar-lava, dolerite, basalt, conglomerated scoriæ, tufa, and pumice-stone.

Among the limestone formations we must distinguish those which are essentially subordinate to volcanic tufas‡ from * From the cataracts of Atures towards the Essequibo River. This chain of Pacaraimo divides the waters of the Carony from those of the Rio Parime, or Rio de Aguas Blancas. † Among many such examples which the structure of the globe displays, we shall mention only the inflexion at a right angle formed by the Higher Alps towards the maritime Alps, in Europe ; and the BelourTagh, which joins transversely the Mouz-Tagh and the Himalaya, in Asia.

Amid the prejudices which impede the progress of mineralogical geography, we may reckon, 1st, the supposition of a perfect, uniformity of direction in the chains of mountains ; 2nd, the hypothesis of the continuity of all chains ; 3rd, the supposition that the highest summits determine the direction of a central chain; 4th, the idea that, in all places where great rivers take rise, we may suppose the existence of great tablelands, or very high mountains. ‡ We have noticed some of the above, following Von Buch, at Lancerote, and at Fortaventura, in the system of the Canary Islands.

Among the smaller islands of the West Indies, the following islets are entirely calcareous, according to M. Cortès: Mariegalante, La Desirade, the Grande Terre of Guadaloupe, and the Grenadillas.

According to the observations of that naturalist, Curaçoa and Buenos Ayres present only

WEST

INDIAN

467

VOLCANOS.

those which appear to be the work of madrepores and other zoophytes. The latter, according to M. Moreau de Jonnès, seem to lie on shoals of a volcanic nature. Those mountains, which present traces of the action of fire more or less recent, and some of which reach nearly nine hundred toises of elevation, are all situated on the western skirt of the smaller West India Islands.* Each island is not the effect of one single heaving-up : most of them appear to consist of isolated masses which have been progressively united together. The matter has not been emitted from one crater, but from several ; so that a single island of small extent contains a whole system of volcanos, regions purely basaltic, and others covered with recent lavas. The volcanos still burning are those of St. Vincent, St. Lucia, and Guadaloupe.

The first threw out lava in 1718 and 1812 ; in the second there is a continual formation of sulphur by the condensation of vapours, which issue from the crevices of an ancient crater. The last eruption of the volcano of Guadaloupe took place in 1797. The Solfatara of St. Christopher's was still burning in 1092. A t Martinique, Vauclin, Montagne Pelée, and the crater surrounded by the live Paps of Carbet, must be considered as three extinguished volcanos.

The effects of thunder have been often confounded in that place with subterranean fire. No good observation has confirmed the supposed eruption of the 22nd of January, calcareous formations.

M . Cortès divides the West India Islands into, 1st, those containing at once primitive, secondary, and volcanic formations, like the greater islands ; 2nd, those entirely calcareous, (or at least so considered) as Mariegalante and Curaçoa; 3rd, those at once volcanic and calcareous, as Antigua, St. Bartholomew, St. Martin, and St. Thomas ; 4th, those which have volcanic rocks only, as St. Vincent, St. Lucia, and St. Eustache. * Journal des Mines, tom. iii. p. 59. In order to exhibit in one point of view the whole system of the volcanos of the smaller West India Islands, I will here trace the direction of the islands from south to north.—Grenada, an ancient crater, filled with water ; boiling springs; basalts between St. George and Goave.—St. Vincent, a burning volcano.

— S t . Lucia, a very active solfatara, named Oualibou, two or three hundred toises high ; jets of hot water, by which small basins are periodically filled.—Martinique, three great extinguished volcanos ; Vauclin. the Paps of Carbet, which are perhaps the most elevated summits of the smaller islands, and Montague Pelée. (The height of this last mountain is probably 800 toises; according to Leblond it is 670 toises ; according

2 H2

468

SUBTERRANEAN THUNDER.

1792.

The group of volcanos in the Caribbee Islands resembles that of the volcanos of Quito and Los Pastos ; craters with which the subterranean lire does not appear to communicate are ranged on the same line with burning craters, and alternate with them.

Notwithstanding the intimate connection manifested in the action of the volcanos of the smaller West India Islands and the earthquakes of Terra Firma, it often happens that shocks felt in the volcanic archipelago are not propagated to the island of Trinidad, or to the coasts of Caracas and Cumana. This phenomenon is in no way surprising : even in the Caribbees the commotions are often confined to one place. The great eruption of the volcano in St. Vincent's did not occasion an earthquake at Martinique or Guadaloupe. Loud explosions were heard there as well as at Venezuela, but the ground was not convulsed.

These explosions must not be confounded with the rolling noise which everywhere precedes the slightest commotions ; they are often heard on the banks of the Orinoco, and (as we were assured In persons living on the spot) between the Rio Arauca and Cuchivero. Father Morello relates that at the Mission of Cabruta the subterranean noise so much resembles discharges of small cannon (pedreros) that it has seemed as if a battle were being fought at a distance.

On the 21st of October, 1766, the day of the terrible earthquake which desolated the province of New Andalusia, the ground was simultaneously shaken at Cumana, at Caracas, at Maracaybo, and on the banks of the Casanare, the Meta, the Orinoco, and the Ventuario. Father Gili has described to Dupuget, 736 toises. Between Vaucliu and the feldspar lavas of the Paps of Carbet is found, as M . Morean de Jonnès asserts, in a neck of land, a region of early basalt called La Roche Carrée). Thermal waters of Prêchcur and Lameutin.—Dominica, completely volcanic.—Guadaloupe, an active volcano, t h e height of which, according to Leboucher, is 799 toises ; according to Amie, 850 toises.—Montserrat, a sulfatara ; fine porphyritic lavas with large crystals of feldspar and hornblende near Galloway, according to Mr. Nugent.— Nevis, a sollatara.—St. Christopher's, a solfatara at Mount M i s e r y .

S t . Eustache, a crater of an extinguished volcano, surrounded by pumice-stone.

(Trinidad, which is traversed by a chain of primitive slate, appears to have anciently formed a part of the littoral chain of Cumana, and not of the system of t h e mountains of the Caribbee Islands.)

UNSATISFACTORY THEORIES.

469

these commotions at the Mission of Encaramada, a country entirely granitic, where they were accompanied by loud explosions. Great fallings-in of the earth took place in the mountain Paurari, and near the rock Aravacoto a small island disappeared in the Orinoco. The undulatory motion continued during a whole hour. This seemed the first signal of those violent commotions which shook the coasts of Cumana and Cariaco for more than ten months. It might he supposed that men living in woods, with no other shelter than huts of reeds and palm-leaves, could have little to dread from earthquakes. But at Erevato and Caura, where these phenomena are of rare occurrence, they terrify the Indians, frighten the beasts of the forests, and impel the crocodiles to quit the waters for the shore. Nearer the sea, where shocks are frequent, far from being dreaded by the inhabitants, they are regarded with satisfaction as the prognostics of a wet and fertile year.

In this dissertation on the earthquakes of Terra Firma and on the volcanos of the neighbouring archipelago of the W e s t India Islands, I have pursued the plan of first relating a number of particular facts, and then considering them in one general point of view. Everything announces in the interior of the globe the operation of active powers, which, by mutual reaction, balance and modify one another. The greater our ignorance of the causes of these undulatory movements, these evolutions of heat, these formations of elastic fluids, the more it becomes the duty of persons who apply themselves to the study of physical science to examine the relations which these phenomena so uniformly present at great distances apart.

It is only by considering these various relations under a general point of view, and tracing them over a great extent of the surface of the globe, through formations of rocks the most different, that we are led to abandon the supposition of trifling local causes, strata of pyrites, or of ignited coal.* The following is the series o f phenomena remarked on the

northern coasts of Cumana, Nueva Barcelona, and Caracas ; and presumed to be connected with the causes which pro* See “ Views of N a t u r e , ” — O n the structure and action of volcanos in different parts of the world,—p. 353 (Bohn's e d . ) ; also “ Cosmos,” pp. 199—225 (Bohn's ed.).

470

CONNECTED PHENOMENA.

duce earthquakes and eruptions of lava. W e shall begin with the most eastern extremity, the island of Trinidad ; which s e e m s rather to belong to the shore of the continent than to the system of the mountains of the West India Islands.

I. The pit which throws up asphaltum in the bay of Mayaro, on the eastern coast of the island of Trinidad, southward of Point Guataro. This is the mine of chapapote or mineral tar of the country. I was assured that in the months of March and June the eruptions are often attended with violent explosions, smoke, and flames. Almost on the same parallel, and also in the sea, but westward of the island (near Punta de la Brea, and to the south of the port of Naparaimo), we find a similar vent. On the neighbouring coast, in a clayey ground, appears the celebrated lake of asphaltum (Laguna de la Brea), a marsh, the waters of which have the same temperature as the atmosphere. The small cones situated at the south-western extremity of the island, between Point Icacos and the Rio Erin, appear to have some analogy with the volcanos of air and mud which I met with at Turbaco in the kingdom of New Grenada. I mention these situations of asphaltum on account of the remarkable circumstances peculiar to them in these regions ; for I am not unaware that naphtha, petroleum, and asphaltum are found equally in voleunic and secondary regions,* and even more frequently in the bitter. Petroleum is found floating on the sea thirty leagues north of Trinidad, around the island of Grenada, which contains an extinguished crater and basalts.

I I . Hot Springs of Irapa, at the north-eastern extremity of New Andalusia, between Rio Caribe, Soro, and Yaguarapayo.

I I I . Air-volcano, or Salce, of Cumacatar, to the south of San Jose and Carupano, near the northern coast of the continent, between La Monta単a de Paria and the town of Cariaco. Almost constant explosions are felt in a clayey * The inflammable emanations of Pietra Mala, (consisting of hydrogen gas containing naphtha in a state of suspension) issue from the Alpine limestone, which may be traced from Covigliano to Raticofa, and which lies on ancient sandstone near Scarica l'Asino.

Under this sandstone (old red sandstone) we find black transition limestone and the grauwacke (quartzose psammite) of Florence.

CONNECTED

PHENOMENA.

471

soil, which is affirmed to be impregnated with sulphur.

Hot sulphureous waters gush out with such violence that the ground is agitated by very sensible shocks. It is said that flames have been frequently seen issuing out since the great earthquake of 1797. These facts are well worthy of being examined.

I V . Petroleum-spring of the Buen Pastor, near Rio Areo.

Large masses of sulphur have been found in clayey soils at Guayuta, as in the valley of San Bonifacio, and near the junction of the Rio Pao with the Orinoco.

V. The Hot Waters (Aguas Calientes) south of the Rio Azul, and the Hollow Ground of Cariaco, which, at the time of the great earthquake of Cumana, threw up sulphuretted water and viscous petroleum.

V I . Hot waters of the gulf of Cariaco.

V I I . Petroleum-spring i n the same gulf, near Maniquarez.

It issues from mica-slate.

V I I I . Flames issuing from the earth, near Cumana, on the banks of the Manzanares, and at Mariguitar, on the southern coast of the gulf of Cariaco, at the time of the great earthquake of 1797.

I X . Igneous phenomena of the mountain of Cuchivano, near Cumanacoa.

X . Petroleum-spring gushing from a shoal to the north of the Caracas Islands. The smell of this spring warns ships of the danger of this shoal, on which there is only one fathom of water.

X I . Thermal springs of the mountain of the Brigantine, near Nueva Barcelona. Temperature 48'2째 (centigrade).

X I I . Thermal springs of Provisor, near San Diego, in the province of .New Barcelona.

XIII. Thermal springs of Onoto, between Turmero and Maracay, in the valleys of Aragua, west of Caracas.

X I V . Thermal springs of Mariara, in the same valleys.

Temperature 58'9째.

X V . Thermal springs of Las Trincheras, between Porto Cabello and Valencia, issuing from granite like those of Mariara, and forming a river of warm water (Rio de Aguas Calientes). Temperature 90'4째.

X V I . Boiling springs of the Sierra Nevada of Merida.

X V I I . Aperture of Mena, on the borders of Lake Mara-

472

EXPLOSIONS OF VAPOUR.

caybo. It throws up asphaltum, and is said to omit gaseous emanations, which ignite spontaneously, and are seen at a great distance.

These are the springs of petroleum and of thermal waters, the igneous meteors, and the ejections of muddy substances attended with explosions, of which I acquired a knowledge in the vast provinces of Venezuela, whilst travelling over a space of two hundred leagues from east to west. These various phenomena have occasioned great excitement among the inhabitants since the catastrophes of 1797 and 1812 : yet they present nothing which constitutes a volcano, in the sense hitherto attributed to that word. If the apertures, which throw up vapours and water with violent noise, be sometimes called volcancitos, it is only by such of the inhabitants as persuade themselves that volcanos must necessarily exist in countries so frequently exposed to earthquakes.

Advancing from the burning crater of St. Vincent in the directions of south, west and south-west, first by the chain of the Caribber Islands, then by the littoral chain of Cumana and Venezuela, and finally by the Cordilleras of New Grenada, along a distance of three hundred and eighty leagues, we find no active volcano before we arrive at Purace, near Popayan.

The total absence of apertures, through which melted substances can issue, in that part of the continent, which stretches eastward of the Cordillera of the Andes, and eastward of the Rocky Mountains, is a most remarkable geological fact.

In this chapter we have examined the great commotions which from time to time convulse the stony crust of the globe, and scatter desolation in regions favoured by the most precious gifts of nature. An uninterrupted calm prevails in the upper atmosphere ; but, to use an expression of Franklin, more ingenious than accurate, thunder often rolls in the subterranean atmosphere, amidst that mixture of elastic fluids, the impetuous movements of which are frequently felt at the surface o f the earth. The destruction of so many populous cities presents a picture of the greatest calamities which afflict mankind.

A people struggling for independence are suddenly exposed to the want of subsistence, and of all the necessaries of life. Famished and without shelter, the inhabitants are dispersed through the

DEPARTURE FROM CARACAS.

473

country, and numbers who have escaped from the ruin of their dwellings are swept away by disease. Far from strengthening mutual confidence among the citizens, the feeling of misfortune destroys it ; physical calamities augment civil discord ; nor does the aspect of a country bathed in tears and blood appease the fury of the victorious party.

After the recital of so many calamities, the mind is soothed by turning to consolatory remembrances.

When the great catastrophe of Caracas was known in the United States, the Congress, assembled at Washington, unanimously decreed that five ships laden with flour should be sent to the coast of Venezuela; their cargoes to be distributed among the most needy of the inhabitants. The generous contribution was received with the warmest gratitude ; and this solemn act of a free people, this mark of national interest, of which the advanced civilization of the Old World affords but few examples, seemed to be a valuable pledge of the mutual sympathy which ought for ever to unite the nations of North and South America.

CHAPTER X V .

Departure from Caracas.—Mountains of San Pedro and of Los Teques.— La Victoria.—Valleys of Aragua.

To take the shortest road from Caracas to the banks of the Orinoco, we should have crossed the southern chain of mountains between Baruta, Salamanca, and the savannahs of Ocumare, passed over the steppes or llanos of Orituco, and embarked at Cabruta, near the mouth of the Rio Guarico. But this direct route would have deprived us of the opportunity of surveying the valleys of Aragua, which are the finest and most cultivated portion of the province ; of taking the level of an important part of the chain of the coast by means of the barometer; and of descending the Rio Apure as far as its junction with the Orinoco. A traveller who has the intention of studying the configuration and natural productions of a country is not guided by

474

VALLEY OF LA PASCUA.

distances, but by the peculiar interest attached to the regions he may traverse. This powerful motive led us to the mountains of Los Teques, to the hot springs of Mariara, to the fertile hanks of the lake of Valencia, and through the immense savannahs of Calabozo to San Fernando de Apure, in the eastern part of the province of Varinas.

Having determined on this route, our first direction was westward, then southward, and finally to east-south-east, so that we might enter the Orinoco by the Apure in latitude 7째 36' 23".

On the day on which wo quitted the capital of Venezuela, we reached the foot of the woody mountains which close the valley on the south-west.

There we halted for the night, and on the following day we proceeded along the right hank of the Rio Guayra as far as the village of Antimano, by a very fine road, partly scooped out of the rock.

W e passed by La Vega and Carapa. The church of La Vega rises very picturesquely above a range of hills covered with thick vegetation. Scattered houses surrounded with date-trees seem to denote the comfort of their inhabitants.

A chain o f low mountains separates the little river Guayra from the valley of La Pascua * (so celebrated in the history of the country), and from the ancient gold-mines of Baruta and Oripoto. Ascending in the direction of Carapa, we enjoy once more the sight, o f the Silla, which appears like an immense dome with a cliff on the side next the sea. This rounded summit, and the ridge of Galipano crenated like a wall, are the only objects which in this basin of gneiss and mica-slate impress a peculiar character on the landscape.

The other mountains have a uniform and monotonous aspect.

A little before reaching the village of Antimano we observed on the right a very curious geological phenomenon.

In hollowing the new road out of the rock, two large veins of gneiss were discovered in the mica-slate. They are nearly perpendicular, intersecting all the mica-slate strata, and are * Valley of Cortes, or Easter Valley, so called because Diego de Losada, after having defeated the Teques Indians, and their cacique Guaycaypuro, in the mountains of San Pedro, spent the Easter there in 1567, before entering the valley of San Francisco.

In the latter place he founded the city of Caracas.

CURIOUS PHENOMENON.

475

from six to eight toises thick. These veins contain not fragments, but balls or spheres of granular diabasis,* formed of concentric layers. These balls are composed of lamellar feldspar and hornblende closely commingled. The feldspar approximates sometimes to vitreous feldspar when disseminated in very thin laminæ in a mass of granular diabasis, decomposed, and emitting a strong argillaceous smell. The diameter of the spheres is very unequal, sometimes four or eight inches, sometimes three or four feet ; their nucleus, which is more dense, is without concentric layers, and of a very dark green hue, inclining to black. I could not perceive any mica in them ; but, what is very remarkable, I found great quantities of disseminated garnets. These garnets are o f a very line r e d . and are f o u n d i n the grünstein only. They are neither in the gneiss, which serves as a cement to the balls, nor in the mica-slate, which the veins traverse. The gneiss, the constituent parts of which arc in a state of considerable disintegration, contains large crystals of feldspar ; and, though it forms the body of the vein in the mica-slate, it is itself traversed by threads of quartz two inches thick, and of very recent formation. The aspect of this phenomenon is very curious : it appears as if cannonballs were embedded in a wall of rock. I also thought I recognized in these same regions, in the Montaña de Avila, and at Cabo Blanco, east of La Guayra, a granular diabasis, mixed with a small quantity of quartz and pyrites, and destitute of garnets, not in veins, but in subordinate strata in the mica-slate. This position is unquestionably to be found in Europe in primitive mountains ; but in general the granular diabasis is more frequently connected with the system of transition rocks, especially with a schist (übergangs-thonschiefer) abounding in beds of Lydian stone strongly carburetted, of schistose jasper,† ampelites,‡ and black limestone.

Near Antimano all the orchards were full of peach-trees loaded with blossom. This village, the Valle, and the banks of the Macarao, furnish groat abundance of peaches, quinces, * Ur-grünstein. I remember having seen similar balls filling a vein in transition-slate, near the castle of Schauenstein in the margravate of Bayreuth. I sent several balls from Antimano to the collection of the king of Spain at Madrid. † Kieselschiefer. ‡ Alaunschiefer.

476

CONFIGURATION

OF

THE

VALLEY.

and other European fruits for the market of Caracas.

Between Antimano and Ajuntas we crossed the Rio Guayra seventeen times. The road is very fatiguing ; yet, instead of making a new one, it would perhaps be better to change the bed of the river, which loses a great quantity of water by the combined effects of filtration and evaporation.

Each sinuosity forms a marsh more or less extensive. This loss of water is to be regretted in a province, nearly all the cultivated portions of which are extremely dry. The rains are much less frequent and less violent in this place than in the interior of New Andalusia, at Cumanacoa, and on the banks of the Guarapiche.

Many of the mountains of Caracas enter the region of the clouds ; but the strata of primitive rocks dip at an angle of 70째 or 80째, and generally to northwest, so that the waters are either lost in the interior of the earth, or gush out in copious springs, not southward but northward of the mountains of the coast of Niguatar, Avila, and Mariara. The rising of the gneiss and mica-slate strata to the south appears to me to explain in a considerable degree the extreme humidity of the coast. In the interior of the province we meet with portions of land, two or three leagues square, in which there are no springs ; consequently sugar-cane, indigo, and coffee, grow only in places where running waters can be made to supply artificial irrigation during very dry weather. The early colonists imprudently destroyed the forests. Evaporation is enormous on a stony soil surrounded with rocks, which radiate heat on every side. The mountains of the coast, like a wall, extending east and west from Cape Codera toward Point Tucacas, prevent the humid air of the shore (that is to say, those inferior strata of the atmosphere resting immediately on the sea, and dissolving the largest proportion of water) from penetrating to the islands. There are few openings, few ravines, which, like those of Catia or of Tipe, lead from the coast to the high longitudinal valleys, and there is no bed of a great river, no gulf allowing the sea to flow inland, spreading moisture by abundant evaporation. In the eighth and tenth degrees of latitude, in regions where the clouds do not, as it were, skim the surface of the soil, many trees are stripped of their leaves in the months of January and February ; not by the sinking of the temperature as in

A SUGAR PLANTATION.

477

Europe, hut because the air at this period, the most distant from the rainy season, nearly attains its maximum of dryness.

Only those plants which have very tough and glossy leaves resist this absence of humidity. Beneath the fine sky of the tropics the traveller is struck with the almost hibernal aspect of the country ; but the freshest verdure again appears when he reaches the banks of the Orinoco, where another climate prevails ; and the great forests preserve b y their shade a certain quantity of moisture in the soil, by sheltering it from the devouring heat of the sun.

Beyond the small village of Antimano the valley becomes much narrower. The river is bordered with Lata, a fine gramineous plant with distich leaves, which sometimes reaches the height of thirty feet.* Every hut is surrounded with enormous trees of persca,† at the foot of which the aristolochiæ, paullinia, and other creepers vegetate.

The neighbouring mountains, covered with forests, seem to spread humidity over the western extremity of the valley of Caracas. We passed the night before our arrival at Las Ajuntas at a sugar-cane plantation. A square house (the hacienda or farm of Don Fernando Key-Muñoz) contained nearly eighty negroes ; they were lying on skins of oxen spread upon the ground. In each apartment of the house were four slaves : it looked like a barrack. A dozen fires were burning in the farm-yard, where people were employed in dressing food, and the noisy mirth of the blacks almost prevented us from sleeping. The clouds hindered me from observing the stars ; the moon appeared only at intervals. The aspect o f the landscape was dull and uniform, and all the surrounding hills were covered with aloes.

Workmen were employed at a small canal, intended for conveying the waters of the Rio San Pedro to the farm, at a height of more than seventy feet. According to a barometric calculation, the site of the hacienda is only fifty toises above the bed of the Rio Guayra at La Noria, near Caracas.

The soil of these countries is found to be but little favour able to the cultivation of the coffee-tree, which in general is less productive in the valley of Caracas than was imagined * G. saccharoides. † Laurus persea (alligator pear).

478

COFFEE PLANTATIONS.

when the first plantations were made near Chacao. The finest coffee-plantations are now found in the savannah of Ocumare, near Salamanca, and at Rincon, in the mountainous countries of Los Mariches, San Antonio Hatillo, and Los Budares.

The coffee of the three last mentioned places, situated eastward of Caracas, is of a superior quality ; but the trees bear a smaller quantity, which is attributed to the height of the spot and the coolness of the climate.

The greater plantations of the province of Venezuela (as Aguacates, near Valencia and Rincon) yield in good years a produce of three thousand quintals.

The extreme predilection entertained in this province for the culture of the coffee-tree is partly founded on the circumstance that the berry can be preserved during a great number of years ; whereas, notwithstanding every possible care, cacao spoils in the warehouses after ten or twelve months.

During the long dissensions of the European powers, at a time when Spain was too weak to protect the commerce of her colonies, industry was directed in preference to productions of which the sale was less urgent, and could await the chances of political and commercial events.

I remarked that in the coffee-plantations the nurseries are formed not so much by collecting together young plants, accidentally rising under trees which have yielded a crop, as by exposing the seeds of coffee to germination during five days, in heaps, between plantain leaves.

These seeds arc taken out of the pulp, but vet retaining a part of it adherent to them. When the seed has germinated it is sown, and it produces plants capable of bearing the heat o f the sun better than those which spring up in the shade in coffee-plantations.

In this country live thousand three hundred coffee-trees are generally planted in a fanega of ground, amounting to live thousand four hundred and seventy-six square toises. This land, if it be capable of artificial irrigation, costs five hundred piastres in the northern part o f the province. The coffee-tree flowers only in the second year, and its flowering lasts only twenty-four hours. At this time the shrub has a charming appearance; and, when seen from afar, it appears covered with snow.

The produce of the third year becomes very abundant. In plantations well weeded and watered, and recently culti-

PRODUCE OF THE COFFEE-TREE.

479

vated, trees will bear sixteen, eighteen, and even twenty pounds of coffee. In general, however, more than a pound and a half or two pounds cannot be expected from each plant; and even this is superior to the mean produce of the West India Islands. The coffee trees suffer much from rain at the time of flowering, as well as from the want of water for artificial irrigation, and also from a parasitic plant, a new species of loranthus, which clings to the branches.

When, in plantations of eighty or a hundred thousand shrubs, we consider the immense quantity of organic matter contained in the pulpy berry of the coffee-tree, we may be astonished that no attempts have been made to extract a spirituous liqnor from them.* I f the troubles of St. Domingo, the temporary rise in the price of colonial produce, and the emigration of French planters, were the first causes of the establishment of coffeeplantations on the continent of America, in the island of Cuba, and in Jamaica ; their produce has far more than compensated the deficiency of the exportation from the French West India Islands. This produce has augmented in proportion to the population, the change of customs, and the increasing luxury of the nations of Europe. The island * The berries heaped together produce a vinous fermentation, during winch a very pleasant alcoholic smell is emitted. Placing, at Caracas, the ripe fruit of the coffee-tree under an inverted jar, quite filled with water, and exposed to the rays of the sun, I remarked that no extrication of gas took place in the first twenty-four hours. After thirty-six hours the berries became brown, and yielded gas. A thermometer, enclosed in the jar in contact with the fruit, kept at night 4째 or 5 째 higher than the external air. In the space of eighty-seven hours, sixty berries, under various jars, yielded me from thirty-eight to forty cubic inches of a gas, which underwent no sensible diminution with nitrous gas. Though a great quantity of carbonic acid had been absorbed by the water as it was produced, I still found 0'78 in the forty inches. The remainder, or 0'22, was nitrogen. The carbonic acid had not been formed by the absorption of the atmospheric oxygen. That winch is evolved from the berries of the coffee-tree slightly moistened, and placed in a phial with a glass stopple filled with air. contains alcohol in suspension ; like the foul air which is formed in our cellars during the fermentation of must.

On agitating the gas in contact with water, the latter acquires a decidedly alcoholic flavour. How many substances are perhaps contained in a state of suspension in those mixtures of carbonic acid and hydrogen, which are called deleterious miasmata, and which rise everywhere within the tropics, in marshy grounds, on the sea-shore, and in forests where the soil is strewed with dead leaves, rotten fruits, and putrefying insects.

480

LA BUENAVISTA.

of St. Domingo exported, in 1700, at the time of Necker's administration, nearly seventy-six million pounds of coffee.* Tea could be cultivated as well as coffee in the mountainous parts of the provinces of Caracas and Cumana. Every climate is there found rising in stages one above another; and this new culture would succeed there as well as in the southern hemisphere, where the government of Brazil, protecting at the same time industry and religious toleration, suffered at once the introduction of Chinese tea and of the dogmas of Fo. It is not yet a century since the first coffeetrees were planted at Surinam and in the West India Islands, and already the produce of America amounts to fifteen millions of piastres, reckoning the quintal of coffee at fourteen piastres only.

On the eighth of February we set out at sunrise, to cross the Higuerote, a group of lofty mountains, separating the two longitudinal valleys of Caracas and Aragua. After passing, near Las Ajuntas, the junction of the two small rivers San Pedro and Macarao, which form the Rio Guayra, we ascended a steep hill to the table-land of La Buenavista, where we saw a few lonely houses. The view extends on the north-west to the city of Caracas, and on the south to the village o f Los Teques. The country has a very wild aspect, and is thickly wooded. We had now gradually lost the plants of the valley of Caracas.† W e wen; eight hun* French pounds, containing 9216 grains. 112 English pounds — 105 French pounds; and 160 Spanish pounds = 9 3 French pounds. T h e island of St. Domingo was at that time, it must he remembered, a French colony. † The Flora of Caracas is characterized chiefly by the following plants, which grow between the heights of four hundred and six hundred toises.

Cipura martinicensis. Panicum mieranthum, Parthenium hysterophorus, Vernonia odoratissima, (Pevetera, with flowers having a delicious odour of heliotropium), Tagetes caracasana, T . scoparia of Lagasca (introduced

by M . Bonpland into the gardens of Spain), Croton hispidus, Smilax scabriusculus, Limnocharis Humboldti, Rich., Equisetum ramosissimum, Hetiranthera alismoïdes, Glycine punctata, Hyptis Plumeri, Pavonia cancellata, Cav., Spermacoce rigida, Crotalaria acutifolia, Polygala nemorosa, Stachytarpheta mutabilis, Cardiospermum ulmaceum. Amaranthus caracasanus, Elephantopus strigosus, Hydrolea mollis, Alternanthera caracasana, Eupatorium amydalinum, Elytraria fasciculata. Salvia fim briata, Angelonia salicaria, Heliotropium strictum, Convolvolus batatilla, Rubus jamaicensis, Datura arborea, Dalea enneaphylla, Buchnera rosea, Salix Humboldtiana; Willd., Theophrasta longifolia, Tournefortia cara-

481

ARBORESCENT FERNS.

dred and thirty-five toises above the level of the ocean, which is almost the height of Popayan; but the mean temperature of this place is probably only 17° or 18°. The road over these mountains is much frequented; we met continually long files of mules and oxen; it is the great road leading from the capital to La Victoria, and the valleys of Aragua This road is cut out of a talcose gneiss* in a state of decomposition. A clayey soil mixed with spangles of mica covered the rock, to the depth of three feet. Travellers suffer from the dust in winter, while in the rainy season the placets changed into a slough. On descending the table-land of Buenavista, about fifty toises to the south-east, an abundant spring, gushing from the gneiss, forms several cascades surrounded with thick vegetation. The path leading to the spring is so steep that we could touch with our hands the tops of the arborescent ferns, the trunks of which reach a height of more than twenty-five feet. The surrounding rocks are covered with jungermannias and hypnoid mosses.

The torrent, formed by the spring, and shaded with heliconias, uncovers, as it falls, the roots of the plumerias,† cupeys, ‡ browneas, and Ficus gigantea. This humid spot, though casana, Inga cinerea, I. ligustrina, I. sapindioïdes, I. fastuosa, Schwenkia patens, Erythrina mitis. The most agreeable places for herborizing near Caracas are the ravines of Tacagua, Tipe, Cotecita, Catoche, Anauco, and Chacaito. * The direction of the strata of gneiss varies; it is either hor. 3 4, dipping to the N . W . or hor. 8 2, dipping to the S.E. † The red jasmine-tree, franyipanier of the French West India Islands. The plumeria, so common in the gardens of the Indians, has been very seldom found in a wild state. It is mixed here with the Piper flagellare, the spadix of which sometimes reaches three feet long.

With the new kind of fig-tree (which we have called Ficus gigantea, because it frequently attains the height of a hundred feet), we find in the mountains of Buenavista and of Los Teques, the Ficus nymphæifolia of the garden of Sehönbrunn, introduced into our hot-houses by M . Bredemeyer. I am certain of the identity of the species found in the same places; but I doubt really whether it be ready the F. nymphæfolia of Linnæus, which is supposed to be a native of the East Indies. ‡ In the experiments I made at Caracas, on the air which circulates in plants, I was struck with the fine appearance presented by the petioles and leaves of the Clusia rosea, when cut open under water, and exposed to the rays of the sun. Each trachea gives out a current of gas, purer by 0 08 than atmospheric air. The phenomenon ceases the moment the apparatus is placed in the shade. There is only a very slight disengage-

VOL. I.

2 I

482

MOUNTAIN VEGETATION.

infested by serpents, presents a rich harvest to the botanist.

The Brownea, which the inhabitants call rosa del monte, or palo de cruz, bears four or five hundred purple flowers together in one thyrsus; each flower has invariably eleven stamina, and this majestic plant, the trunk of which grows to the height of fifty or sixty feet, is becoming rare, because its wood yields a highly valued charcoal. The soil is covered with pines (ananas), hemimeris, polygala, and melastomas.

A climbing gramen* with its light festoons unites trees, the presence of which attests the coolness of the climate of these mountains. Such are the Aralia capitata,t the Vismia caparosa, and the Clethra fagifolia. Among these plants, peculiar to the fine region of the arborescent ferns,‡ some palm-trees rise in the openings, and some scattered groups of guarumo, or cecropia with silvery leaves. The trunks of the latter are not very thick, and are of a black colour towards the summit, as if burnt by the oxygen of the atmosphere. W e are surprised to find so noble a tree, which has the port of the theophrasta and the palm-tree, bearing generally only eight or ten terminal leaves. The ants, which inhabit the trunk of the guarumo, or jarumo, and destroy its interior cells, seem to impede its growth. W e had already made one herborization in the temperate mountains of the Higuerote in the month of December, accompanying the capitan-general, Señor do Guevara, in an excursion with the intendant of the province to the Valles de Aragua. M. Bonpland then found in the thickest part of the forest some plants of aguatire, the wood of which, celebrated for its fine red colour, will probably one day become an article of exportation to Europe. It is the Sickingia erythroxylon described by Bredemeyer and Willdenow. ment of air at the two surfaces of the leaves of the clusia exposed to the sun without being cut open. The gas enclosed in the capsules of the Cardiospermum vesicarium appeared to me to contain the same proportion of oxygen as the atmosphere, while that contained between the knots, in the hollow of the stalk, is generally less pure, containing only from 0 12 to 0 15 of oxygen.

It is necessary to distinguish between the air circulating in the tracheæ:, and that which is stagnant in the great cavities of the stems and pericarps. * Carice.

See p. 207. † Candelero.

W e found it also at La Cumbre, at a height of 700 toises. ‡ Called by the inhabitants of the country ' Region de los helechos.'

483

VALLEY OF SAN PEDRO.

Descending the woody mountain of the Higuerote to the south-west, we reached the small village of San Pedro, situated in a basin where several valleys meet, and almost three hundred toises lower than the table-land of Buenavista. Plantain-trees, potatoes,* and coffee are Cultivated together on this spot. The village is very small, and the church not yet finished. We met at an inn (pulperia) several European Spaniards employed at the government tobacco farm. Their dissatisfaction formed a strange contrast to our feelings.

They were fatigued with their journey, and they vented their displeasure in complaints and maledictions on the wretched country, or to use their own phrase, estas tierras infelices, in which they were doomed to live. W e , on the other hand, were enchanted with the wild scenery, the fertility of the soil, and the mildness of the climate. Near San Pedro, the talcose gneiss of Buenavista passes into a mica-slate filled with garnets, and containing subordinate beds of serpentine. Something analogous to this is met with at Zöblitz in Saxony. The serpentine, which is very pure and of a fine green, varied with spots of a lighter tint, often appears only superimposed on the mica-slate. I found in it a few garnets, but no metalloid diallage.

The valley of San Pedro, through which flows the river of the same name, separates two great masses of mountains, the Higuerote and Las Cocuyzas. W e ascended westward in the direction of the small farms of Las Lagunetos and Garavatos. These are solitary houses, which serve as inns, and where the mule-drivers obtain their favourite beverage, the guarapo, or fermented juice of the sugar-cane: intoxication is very common among the Indians who frequent this road. Near Garavatos there is a mica-slate rock of singular form; it is a ridge, or steep wall, crowned by a tower. We opened the barometer at the h i g h e s t point of the mountain Las Cocuyzas,† and found ourselves almost at the same elevation as on the table-land of Buenavista, which is scarcely ten toises higher.

The prospect at Las Lagunetas is extensive, but rather Uniform. This mountainous and uncultivated tract of ground * Solanum tuberosum, † Absolute height 815 toises.

2

I

2

484

VALLEY OF THE RIO TUY.

between the sources of the Guayra and the Tuy is more than twenty-five square leagues in extent. We there found only one miserable village, that of Los Teques, south-east of San Pedro. The soil is as it were furrowed by a multi­ tude of valleys, the smallest of which, parallel with each other, terminate at right angles in the largest valleys. The back of the mountains presents an aspect as monotonous as the ravines ; it has no pyramidal forms, no ridges, no steep declivities. I am inclined to think that the undulation of this ground, which is for the most part very gentle, is less owing to the nature of the rocks, (to the decomposition of the gneiss for instance), than to the long presence of the water and the action of currents. The limestone mountains of Cumana present the same phenomenon north of Tumiriquiri.

From Las Lagunetas we descended into the valley of the Rio Tuy. This western slope of the mountains of Los Teques bears the name of Las Cocuyzas, and it is covered with two plants with agave leaves; the maguey of Cocuyza, and the таgиeу of Cocuy. The latter belongs to the genus Yucca.* Its sweet and fermented juice yields a spirit by distillation ; and I have seen the young leaves of this plant eaten. The fibres of the full-grown leaves furnish cords of extraordinary strength.† Leaving the mountains of the Higuerote and Los Teques, wo entered a highly cultivated country, covered with hamlets and villages; several of which would in Europe be called towns. Prom cast to west, on a line of twelve leagues in extent, we passed La Victoria, San Mateo, Turmero, and Maracay, containing together more than 28,000 inhabitants. The plains of the Tuy may be con­ sidered as the eastern extremity of the valleys of Aragua, extending from Guigne, on the borders of the lake of Valencia, as far as the foot o f Las Cocuyzas. A barometri­ cal measurement gave me 295 toises for the absolute height, of the Valle del Tuy, near the farm of Manterola, and 222 toises for that of the surface of the lake. The Rio Tuy, flowing from the mountains of Las Cocuyzas, runs first towards the west, then turning to the south and to the east, * Yucca acaulis, Humb. † At the clock of the cathedral of Caracas, a cord of maguey, half an inch in diameter, sustained for fifteen years a weight of 350 pounds.

AGREEABLE TEMPERATURE.

485

it takes its course along the high savannahs of Ocumare, receives the waters of the valley of Caracas, and reaches the sea near cape Codera. It is the small portion of its basin in the westward direction which, geologically speaking, would seem to belong to the valley of Aragua, if the hills of calcareous tufa, breaking the continuity of these valleys between Consejo and La Victoria, did not deserve some consideration. W e shall here again remind the reader that the group of the mountains of Los Teques, eight hundred and fifty toises high, separates two longitudinal valleys, formed in gneiss, granite, and mica-slate. The most eastern of these valleys, containing the capital of Caracas, is 200 toises higher than the western valley, which may be considered as the centre of agricultural industry.

Having been for a long time accustomed to a moderate temperature, we found the plains of the Tuy extremely hot, although the thermometer kept, in the day-time, between eleven in the morning and five in the afternoon, at only 23° or 24°. The nights were delightfully cool, the temperature falling as low as 17 5°. As the heat gradually abated, the air became more and more fragrant with the odour of flowers. W e remarked above all the delicious perfume of the Lirio hermoso,* a new species of pancratium, of which the flower, eight or nine inches long, adorns the banks of the Rio Tuy. W e spent two very agreeable days at the plantation of Don .Jose; de Manterola, who in his youth had accompanied the Spanish embassy to Russia. The farm is a fine plantation of sugar-canes; and the ground is as smooth as the bottom of a drained lake.

The Rio Tuy winds through districts covered with plantains, and a little wood of Hura crepitans, Erythrina corallodendron, and fig-trees with nymphæa leaves. The bed of the river is formed of pebbles of quartz. I never met with more agreeable bathing than in the Tuy. The water, as clear as crystal, preserves even during the day a temperature of 18-6°; a considerable coolness for these climates, and for a height of three hundred toises; but the sources of the river are in the surrounding mountains. The house of the proprietor, situated on a hillock, of fifteen or twenty toises of elevation, is surrounded by the huts of the negroes. Those who are * Pancratium undulatum.

486

SPECIES OF THE SUGAR-CANE.

married provide food for themselves; and here, as everywhere else in the valleys of Aragua, a small spot of ground is allotted to them to cultivate. They labour on that ground on Saturdays and Sundays, the only days in the week on which they are free. T h e y keep poultry, and sometimes even a pig. Their masters boast o f their happiness, as in the north of Europe the great landholders love to descant upon the ease enjoyed by peasants who are attached to the glebe. On the day of our arrival we saw three fugitive negroes brought hack ; they were slaves newly purchased. I dreaded having to witness one of those punishments which, wherever slavers prevails, destroys all the charm o f a country lite.

Happily these blacks were treated with humanity.

In this plantation, as in all those of the province of Venezuela, three species of sugar-cane can be distinguished even at a distance b y the colour of their leaves; the old Creole sugar-cane, the Otaheite cane, and the Batavia cane.

The first has a deep-green leaf, the stem not very thick, and the knots rather near together. This sugar-cane was the first introduced from India into Sicily, the Canary Islands, and West Indies. The second is of a lighter green; and its stem is higher, thicker, and more succulent. The whole plant exhibits a more luxuriant vegetation. We owe this plant to the voyages of Bougainville, Cook, and Bligh.

Bougainville carried it to the Mauritius, whence it passed to Cayenne,

Martinique, and. since

1792

to the rest, o f the

Wist India Islands. The sugar-cane o f Otaheite, called by the people of that island To, is one of the most important acquisitions for which colonial agriculture is indebted to the travels of naturalists.

It yields not only one-third more juice than the creolian cane on the same space of ground; but from the thickness of its stem, and the tenacity of its ligneous fibres, it furnishes much more fuel.

This last advantage is important in the West Indies, where the destruction of the forests has long obliged the planters to use canes deprived o f juice, to keep up the fire under the boilers. But for the knowledge of this new plant, together with the progress of agriculture on the continent of Spanish America, and the introduction of the East India and .lava sugar, the prices of colonial produce in Europe would have been much more sensibly affected by the revolutions of St.

SUPPOSED GOLD-MINE.

487

Domingo, and the destruction of the great sugar plantations of that island. The Otaheite sugar-cane was carried from the island of Trinidad to Caracas, under the name of Ca単a solera, and it passed from Caracas to Cucuta and San Gil in the kingdom of New Grenada. In our days its cultivation during twenty-five years has almost entirely removed the apprehension at first entertained, that being transplanted to America, the cane would by degrees degenerate, and become as slender as the creole cane. The third species, the violet sugar-cane, called Ca単a de Batavia, or de Guinea, is certainly indigenous in the island of Java, where it is cultivated in preference in the districts of Japara and Pasuruan.* Its foliage is purple and very broad ; and this cane is preferred in the province of Caracas for rum. The tablones, or grounds planted with sugar-canes, are divided by hedges of a colossal gramen ; the lata, or gynerium, with distich leaves. A t the Tuy, men were employed in finishing a dyke, to form a canal of irrigation. This enterprise had cost the proprietor seven thousand piastres for the expense of labour, and four thousand piastres for the costs of lawsuits in which he had become engaged with his neighbours. While the lawyers were disputing about a canal of which only one-half was finished, Don Jose de Manterola began to doubt even of the possibility of carrying the plan into execution. I took the level of the ground with a lunette d'epreuve, on an artificial horizon, and found, that the dam had been constructed eight feet too low. What sums of money have I seen expended uselessly in the Spanish colonies, for undertakings founded on erroneous levelling!

The valley of the Tuy has its 'gold mine,' like almost every part of America inhabited by whites, and backed by primitive mountains. I was assured, that in 1780, foreign gold-gatherers had been engaged in picking up grains of that m e t a l , and had established a place for washing the sand in the Quebrada del Oro. An overseer of a neighbouring plantation had f o l l o w e d these indications ; and after his death, a waistcoat with gold buttons being found among his clothes, this gold, according to the logic of the people here, could only have proceeded from a vein, which the falling-in of the earth had rendered invisible. In vain I objected, that I could * Raffles, History of Java, tom. i. p. 124.

488

QUEBRADA SECA.

not, by the mere view of the soil, without digging a large trench in the direction of the vein, judge of the existence of the mine; I was compelled to yield to the desire of my hosts. For twenty years past the overseer's waistcoat had been the subject of conversation in the country.

Gold extracted from the bosom of the earth is far more alluring in the eyes of the vulgar, than that which is the produce of agricultural industry, favoured by the fertility of the soil, and the mildness of the climate.

North-west of the Hacienda del Tuy, in the northern range of the chain of the coast, w e find a deep ravine, called the Quebrada Seca, because the torrent, by which it was formed, loses its waters through the crevices of the rock, before it reaches the extremity of the ravine. The whole of this mountainous country is covered with thick vegetation.

W e there

found

the same- verdure

as had

charmed us by its freshness in the mountains of Buenavista and Las Lagunetas, wherever the ground rises as high as the region of the clouds, and where the vapours of the sea have free access.

I n the plains, o n the contrary, many trees are stripped of a part of their leaves during the winter; and when we descend into the valley of the Tuy, we are struck with the; almost hibernal aspect o f the country. The dryness of the air is such that the hygrometer of Deluc keeps day and night between 36째 and 40째.

A t a distance from the river scarcely any huras or pipertrees extend their foliage over thickets destitute of verdure.

This seems owing to the dryness of the air, which attains its maximum in the month of February; and not, as the European planters assert, "to the seasons of Spain, o f which the empire extends as far as the torrid zone." It is only plants transported from one hemisphere to the other, which, in their organic functions, in the; development of their leaves and flowers, still retain their affinity to a distant climate : faithful to their habits, they follow for a long time the periodical

changes

of

their

native

hemisphere.

In the

province o f Venezuela the trees stripped o f their foliage begin to renew their leaves nearly a month before the rainy season. It is probable, that at this period the electrical equilibrium of the air is already disturbed, and the atmosphere, although not vet clouded, becomes gradually more

ENORMOUS

TREE.

489

humid. The azure of the sky is paler, and the elevated regions are loaded with light vapours, uniformly diffused.

This season may be considered as the awakening of nature; it is a spring which, according to the received language of the Spanish colonies, proclaims the beginning of winter, and succeeds to the heats of summer.* Indigo was formerly cultivated in the Quebrada Seca; but as the soil covered with vegetation cannot there concentrate so much heat as the plains and the bottom of the Tuy valley receive and radiate, the cultivation of coffee has been substituted in its stead. As we advanced in the ravine we found the moisture increase. Near the Hato, at the northern extremity of the Quebrada, a torrent rolls down over sloping beds of gneiss. An aqueduct was being formed there to convey the water to the plain. Without irrigation, agriculture makes no progress in these climates.

A tree of monstrous size fixed our attention.† It lay on the slope of the mountain, above the house of the Hato.

On the least dislodgment of the earth, its fall would have Crushed the habitation which it shaded : it had therefore been burnt near its foot, and cut down in such a manner, that it fell between some enormous fig-trees, which prevented it from rolling into the ravine. W e measured the fallen tree; and though its summit had been burnt, the length of its trunk was still one hundred and fifty-four feet.‡ It was eight feet in diameter near the roots, and four feet two inches at the upper extremity.

Our guides, less anxious than ourselves to measure the bulk of trees, continually pressed us to proceed onward and seek the 'gold mine.' This part of the ravine is little frequented, and is not uninteresting. We made the following observations on the geological constitution of the soil. A t the entrance of the Quebrada Seca we remarked great masses of primitive saccharoidal limestone, tolerably fine * That part of the year most abundant in rain is called winter; so that in Terra Firma, the season which begins by the winter solstice, is designated by the name of summer; and it is usual to hear, that it is winter on the mountains, at the time when summer prevails in the neighbouring plains. † Hura crepitans. ‡ French measure, nearly fifty metres.

490

VISIT TO THE GOLD-WASHINGS.

grained, of a bluish tint, and traversed b y veins of calcareous spar of dazzling whiteness. These calcareous masses must not be confounded with the very recent depositions of tufa, or carbonate of lime, which till the plains of the T u y ; they form beds of mica-slate, passing into talc-slate.* The primitive limestone often simply covers this latter rock in concordant stratification. Very near the Hato the talcose slate becomes entirely white, and contains small layers of soft and unctuous graphic ampelite.†Some pieces, destitute of veins of quartz, are real granular plumbago, which might be of use in the arts. The aspect of the rock is very singular in those places where thin plates of black ampelite alternate with thin, sinuous, and satiny plates of a talcose slate as white as snow. It would seem as if the carbon and iron, which in other places colour the primitive rocks, are here concentrated in the subordinate strata.

Turning westward we reached at length the ravine of gold (Quebrada del Oro).

On examining the slope of a hill, we could hardly recognize the vestige of a vein of quartz. The falling of the earth caused by the rains had changed the surface of the ground, and rendered if impossible to make any observation. Great trees wen; growing in the places where the gold-washers bad worked twenty years before. If is probable that the mica-slate contains here, as near Goldcronach in Franconia, and in Salzburgh, auriferous veins; but how is it possible to judge whether they be worth the expense of being wrought, or whether the ore is only in nodules, and in the less abundance in proportion as it, is rich? We made a long herborization in a thick forest, extending beyond the Hato, and abounding in cedrelas, browneas, and fig-trees with nymphĂŚa leaves. The trunks of these last are covered with very odoriferous plants of vanilla, which in general flower only in the month of April. We were hero again struck with those ligneous excrescences, which in the form of ridges, or ribs, augment to the height of twenty feet above the ground, the thickness of the trunk of the fig-trees of America. I found * Talkschiefer of Werner, without garnets or serpentine ; not eurite or weisstein.

It is in the mountains of Buenavista that the gneiss manifests a tendency to pass into eurite. †Zeichenschiefer.

491

ZODIACAL LIGHT.

trees twenty-two feet and a half in diameter near the roots.

These ligneous ridges sometimes separate from the trunk at a height of eight feet, and are transformed into cylindrical roots two feet thick. The tree looks as if it were supported by buttresses. This scaffolding however does not penetrate very deep into the earth. The lateral roots wind at the surface of the ground, and if at twenty feet distance from the trunk they are cut with a hatchet, we see gushing out the milky juice of the fig-tree, which, when deprived of the vital influence of the organs of the tree, is altered and coagulates. What a wonderful combination of cells and vessels exist in these vegetable masses, in these gigantic trees of the torrid zone, which without interruption, perhaps dining the space of a thousand years, prepare nutritious fluids, raise them to the height of one hundred and eighty feet, convey them down again to the ground, and conceal, beneath a rough and hard bark, under inanimate layers of ligneous matter, all the movements of organic life!

I availed myself of the clearness of the nights, to observe at the plantation of Tuy two emersions of the first and third satellites of Jupiter. These two observations gave, according to the tables of Delambre, long. 4 39' 14" ; and by the chronometer I found 4 39' 10". During my stay in the valleys of the Tuy and Aragua the zodiacal light appeared almost every night with extraordinary brilliancy. I had perceived it for the first time between the tropics at Caracas, on the 18th of January, after seven in the evening. The point of the pyramid was at the height of 53째. The light totally disappeared at 9 35' (apparent time), nearly 3 50' h

h

h

h

after sunset, without any diminution in the serenity of the

sky.

La Caille, in his voyage to Rio Janeiro and the Cape,

W a s struck with the beautiful appearance displaced by the

zodiacal light within the tropics, not so much on account of its less inclined position, as of the greater transparency of the air.* It may appear singular, that Childrey and Dominic Cassini, navigators who were well acquainted with the seas of the two Indies, did not at a much earlier period direct the attention of scientific Europe to this light, and its regular form and progress.

Until the middle of the * The great serenity of the air caused this phenomenon to be remarked, in 1668, in the arid plains of Persia.

492

ZODIACAL LIGHT.

eighteenth century mariners were little interested by anything not having immediate relation to the course of a ship, and the demands of navigation.

However brilliant the zodiacal light in the dry valley of Tuy, I have observed it more beautiful still at the back of the Cordilleras of Mexico, on the banks of the lake of Tezcuco, eleven hundred and sixty toises above the surface of the ocean. In the month of January, 1804, the light rose sometimes to more than 60° above the horizon. The Milky Way appeared to grow pale compared with the brilliancy of the zodiacal light; and if small, bluish, scattered clouds were accumulated toward the west, it seemed as if the moon were about to rise.

I must here relate another very singular fact. On the 18th of January, and the 15th of February, 1800, the intensity of the zodiacal light changed in a very perceptible manner, at intervals of two or three minutes. Sometimes it was very faint, at others it surpassed the brilliancy of the Milky W a y in Sagittarius. The changes took place in the whole pyramid, especially toward the interior, far from the edges. During these variations of the zodiacal light, the hygrometer indicated considerable dryness. The stars of the fourth and fifth magnitude appeared constantly to the naked eye with the same degree of light. No stream of vapour was visible: nothing seemed to alter the transparency of the atmosphere. In other years I saw the zodiacal light augment in the southern hemisphere half an hour before its disappearance.

Cassini admitted "that the zodiacal light was feebler in certain yean, and then returned to its former brilliancy." H e thought that these slow changes were connected w:ith " t h e same emanations which render the appearance of spots and faculĂŚ periodical on the solar disk." But this excellent observer does not mention those changes o f intensity in the zodiacal light which I have several times remarked within the tropics, in the space of a few minutes. Mairan asserts, that in France; it, is common enough to see the zodiacal light, in the months o f February and March, mingling with a kind of Aurora Borealis, which he calls 'undecided,' and the nebulous matter of which spreads itself all* around the horizon, or appears toward the west. I very much doubt, whether, in the observations I

AGED NEGRESS.

493

have been describing, there was any mixture of these two species of light. The variations in intensity took place at considerable altitudes ; the light was white, and not coloured ; steady, and not undulating. Besides, the Aurora Borealis is so seldom visible within the tropics, that during five years, though almost constantly sleeping in the open air, and observing the heavens with unremitting attention, I never perceived the least traces of that phenomenon.

I am rather inclined to think that the variations of the zodiacal light are not all appearances dependent on certain modifications in the state of our atmosphere. Sometimes, during nights equally clear, I sought in vain for the zodiacal light, when, on the previous night, it had appeared with the greatest brilliancy. Must we admit that emanations which reflect white light, and seem to have some analogy with the tails of comets, are less abundant at certain periods ? Researches on the zodiacal light have acquired a new degree of interest since geometricians have taught us that we are ignorant of the real causes of this phenomenon. The illustrious author of " La MĂŠcanique CĂŠleste" has shown that the solar atmosphere cannot reach even the planet Mercury; and that it could not in any case display the lenticular form which has been attributed to the zodiacal light. W e may also entertain the same doubts respecting the nature of this light, as with regard to that of the tails of comets. Is it in fact a reflected or a direct light ?

W e left the plantation of Manterola on the 11th of February, at sunrise. The road runs along the smiling banks of the T u y ; the morning was cool and humid, and the air seemed embalmed by the delicious odour of the Pancratium undulatum, and of her large liliaceous plants. In our way to La Victoria, we passed the pretty village of Mamon or of Consejo, celebrated in the country for a miraculous image of the Virgin. A little before we reached Mamon, we stopped at a farm belonging to the family of Monteras.

A negress more than a hundred years old was seated before a small hut built of earth and reeds. Her age was known because she was a Creole slave. She seemed still to enjoy very good health. " I keep her in the sun" (la tengo al sol), said her grandson; " t h e heat keeps her alive."

494

ROAD TO LA VICTORIA.

This appeared to us not a very agreeable mode of prolonging life, for the sun was darting his rays almost perpendicularly. The brown-skinned nations, blacks well seasoned, and Indians, frequently attain a very advanced age in the torrid zone. A native of Peru named Hilario Pari died at the extraordinary age of one hundred and forty-three years, after having been ninety years married.

Don Francisco Montera and his brother, a well-informed young priest, accompanied us with the view of conducting us to their house at La Victoria. Almost all the families with whom we had lived in friendship at Caracas were assembled in the fine valleys of Aragua, and they vied with each other in their efforts to render our stay agreeable.

Before we plunged into the forests of the Orinoco, we enjoyed once more all the advantages which advanced civilization affords.

The road from Mamon to La Victoria runs south and south-west. W e soon lost sight of the river Tuy, which, turning eastward, forms an elbow at the foot of the high mountains of Guayraima. As we drew nearer to Victoria the ground became smoother; it seemed like the bottom of a lake, the waters of which had been drained off. We might have fancied ourselves in the valley of Hasli, in the canton of Berne. The neighbouring hills, only one hundred and forty toises in height, are composed of calcareous tufa ; but their abrupt declivities project like promontories on the plain. Their form indicates the ancient shore of the; lake.

The eastern extremity of this valley is parched and uncultivated. No advantage has been derived from t h e ravines which water the neighbouring mountains; but fine cultivation is commencing in the proximity of the town. I say of the town, though in my time Victoria was considered only as a village (pueblo).

The environs of La Victoria present a very remarkable agricultural aspect. The height of the cultivated ground is from t w o hundred and seventy to three hundred toises above the level of the ocean, and yet we t h e r e find fields of corn mingled with plantations of sugar-cane, coffee, and plantains.

Excepting t h e interior of the island of Cuba,* we scarcely find elsewhere in the equinoctial regions * The district of Quatro Villas.

MEAN TEMPERATURE.

495

European corn cultivated in large quantities in so low a region. The hue fields of wheat in Mexico are between six hundred and twelve hundred toises of absolute elevation; and it is rare to see them descend to four hundred toises.

W e shall soon perceive that the produce of grain augments sensibly, from high latitudes towards the equator, with the mean temperature of the climate, in comparing spots of different elevations. The success of agriculture depends on the dryness of the air; on the rains distributed through different seasons, or accumulated in one season; on winds blowing constantly from the east; or bringing the cold air of the north into very low latitudes, as in the gulf of Mexico; on mists, which for whole months diminish the intensity of the solar rays; in short, on a thousand local circumstances which have less influence on the mean temperature of the whole year than on the distribution of the same quantity of heat through the different parts of the year.

It is a striking spectacle to see the grain of Europe cultivated from the equator as far as Lapland in the latitude of 09°, in regions where the mean heat is from 22° to — 2 ° , in every place where the temperature of summer is above 9° or 10°.

W e know the minimum of heat requisite to ripen wheat, barley, and oats; but we are less certain in respect to the maximum which these species of grain, accommodating as they are, can support. W e are even ignorant of all the circumstances which favour the culture of corn within the tropics at very small heights. La Victoria and the neighbouring village; of San Mateo yield an annual produce of four thousand quintals of wheat. It is sown in the month of December, and the harvest is reaped on the seventieth or seventy-fifth day. The grain is large, white, and abounding of gluten; its pellicle is thinner and not so bard as that of the wheat of the very cold table-lands of Mexico. A n acre* near Victoria generally yields from three thousand to three thousand two hundred pounds Weight of wheat. The average produce is consequently here, as at Buenos Ayres, three or four times as much as that of northern countries Nearly sixteenfold of the quantify of seed is reaped; while, according to Lavoisier, * An arpent des eaux et forêts, or legal acre of France, of which 1 95 =1 hectare. It is about 11 acre English.

496

TOWN OF VICTORIA.

the surface of France yields on an average only five or six for one, or from one thousand to twelve hundred pounds per acre. Notwithstanding this fecundity of the soil, and this happy influence of the climate, the culture of the sugar-cane is more productive in the valleys of Aragua than that of corn.

La Victoria is traversed by the little river Calanchas, running, not into the Tuy, but into the Rio Aragua: it thence results that this fine country, producing at once sugar and corn, belongs to the basin of the lake of Valencia, to a system of interior rivers not communicating with the sea. The quarter of the town west of the Rio Calanchas is called la otra banda; it is the most commercial part; merchandize is everywhere exhibited, and ranges of shops form the streets. Two commercial roads pass through La Victoria, that of Valencia, or of Porto Cabello, and the road of Villa de Cura, or of the plains, called camino de los Llanos. W e here find more whites in proportion than at Caracas. W e visited at sunset the little hill of Calvary, where the view is extremely line and extensive. W e discover on the west the; lovely valleys of Aragua, a vast space covered with gardens, cultivated tields, clumps of wild trees, farms, and hamlets. Turning south and south-east, we see, extending as far as the eye can reach, the lofty mountains of La Palma, Guayraima, Tiara, and Guiripa, which conceal the immense plains or steppes of Calabozo.

This interior chain stretches westward along the lake of Valencia, towards the Villa de Cura, the Cuesta de Yusma, and the denticulated mountains of Guigne. It is very steep, and constantly covered with that light vapour which in hot climates gives a vivid blue tint to distant objects, and, far from concealing their oltlines, marks them the more strongly. It is believed that among the mountains of the interior chain, that of Guayraima reaches an elevation of twelve hundred toises. I found in the night of the eleventh o f February the latitude o f La Victoria 10째 13' 35", the magnetic dip 40 8째, the intensity of the forces equal to 236 oscillations in ten minutes of time, and the variation of the needle 4 4째 north-east.

W o proceeded slowly on our way by the villages of San Mateo, Turmero, and Maracay, to the Hacienda de Cura. a

PRODUCE OF CORN.

497

fine plantation belonging to Count Tovar, where we arrived on the evening of the fourteenth of February. The valley, which gradually widens, is bordered with hills of calcareous tufa, called here tierra blanca. The scientific men of the country have made several attempts to calcine this earth, mistaking it for the porcelain earth proceeding from decomposed strata of feldspar. W e stayed some hours with a very intelligent family, named Ustariz, at Concesion. Their house, which contains a collection of choice books, stands on an eminence, and is surrounded by plantations of coffee and sugar-cane. A grove of balsam-trees (balsamo*) gives coolness and shade to this spot. It was gratifying to observe the great number of scattered houses in the valley inhabited by freedmen. In the Spanish colonies, the laws, the institutions, and the manners, are more favourable to the liberty of the negroes than in other European settlements.

San Mateo, Turmero, and Maracay, are charming villages, where everything denotes the comfort of the inhabitants. We seemed to be transported to the most industrious districts of Catalonia. Near San Mateo we find the last fields of wheat, and the last mills with horizontal hydraulic wheels.

A harvest of twenty for one was expected ; and, as if that produce were but moderate, I was asked whether corn yielded more in Prussia and in Poland.

By an error generally prevalent under the tropics, the produce of gram is supposed to degenerate in advancing towards the equator, and harvests are believed to be more abundant in northern climates. Since calculations have been made on the progress of agriculture in the different zones, and on the temperatures under the influence of which corn will flourish, it has been found that, beyond the latitude of 45°, the produce of wheat is nowhere so considerable as on the nortnern coasts of Africa, and on the table-lands of New Grenada, Peru, and Mexico. Without comparing the mean temperature of the whole year, but only the mean temperature of the season which embraces the corn cycle of vegetation, we find for three months of summer,† in the north of Europe, from 15° to 19° , in Bar* Amyris elata. † The mean heat of the summers of Scotland in the environs of VOL. I.

2 K

498

LIMITS OF THE GROWTH OF CORN.

bary and in Egypt, from 27° to 29°; within the tropics, between fourteen and three hundred toises of height, from 14° to 25 5° of the centigrade thermometer.

The fine harvests of Egypt and of Algiers, as well as those of the valleys of Aragua and the interior of the island of Cuba, sufficiently prove that the augmentation of heat is not prejudicial to the harvest of wheat and other alimentary grain, unless it be attended with an excess of drought or moisture. To this circumstance no doubt we must attribute the apparent anomalies sometimes observed within the tropics, in the lower limit of corn. W e are astonished to see, eastward of the Havannah, in the famous district of Quatro Villas, that this limit descends almost to the level of the ocean; whilst west of the Havannah, on the slope of the mountains of Mexico and Xalapa, at six hundred and seventy-seven t o i s e s of height, t h e l u x u r i a n c e of v e g e t a t i o n is such, that wheat does not form cars. A t the beginning of the Spanish conquest, the corn of Europe was cultivated with success in several regions now supposed to be too hot, or too damp, for this branch of agriculture. The Spaniards on their first removal to America were little accustomed to live on maize. They still adhered to their European habits.

They did not calculate; whether corn would be less profitable than coffee or cotton.

They tried seeds of every kind, making experiments the more; boldly because their reasonings were less founded on false theories. The province of Carthagena, crossed by the chain of the m o u n t a i n s Maria and Guamoco, produced wheat till the sixteenth century.

In the province of Caracas, this culture is of very ancient date in the mountainous lands of Tocuyo, Quibor, and liarEdinburgh, (lat. 56°), is found again on the table-lands of New Grenada, so rich in wheat, at 1400 toises of elevation, and at 4° N . latitude.

On

the other hand, we find the mean temperature of the valleys of Aragua, lat. 10° 13', and of all the plains which are not very elevated in the torrid zone, in the summer temperature of Naples and Sicily, lat. 39° to 40° These figures indicate the situation of the isotheric lines (lines of the same summer heat), and not that of the isothermal lines (those of equal annual temperature).

Considering the quantity of heat received on the

same spot of the globe during a whole year, the mean temperatures of the valleys of Aragua, and the table-lands of New Grenada, at 300 and 1400 toises of elevation, correspond to the mean temperatures of the coasts at 23°

and 45° of latitude.

499

VILLAGE OF TURMERO.

quesimeto, which connect the littoral chain with the Sierra Nevada of Merida. Wheat is still successfully cultivated there, and the environs of the town of Tocuyo alone export annually more than eight thousand quintals of excellent flour. But, though the province of Caracas, in its vast extent, includes several spots very favourable to the cultivation of European corn, I believe that in general this branch of agriculture will never acquire any great importance there.

The most temperate valleys are not sufficiently wide ; they are not real table-lands; and their mean elevation above the level of the sea is not so considerable but that the inhabitants cannot fail to perceive that it is more their interest to establish plantations of coffee, than to cultivate corn. Flour now comes to Caracas either from Spain or from the United States.

The village of Turmero is four leagues distant from San Mateo. The road leads through plantations of sugar, indigo, cotton, and coffee. The regularity observable in the construction of the villages, reminded us that they all owe their origin to monks and missions. The streets are straight and parallel, crossing each other at right angles; and the church is invariably erected in the great square, situated in the centre of the village. The church of Turmero is a fine edifice, but overloaded with architectural ornaments.

Since the missionaries have been replaced by vicars, the whites have mingled their habitations with those of the Indians. The latter are gradually disappearing as a separate race; that is to say, they are represented in the general statement of the population by the Mestizoes and the Zamboes, whoso numbers daily increase. I still found, however, four thousand tributary Indians in the valleys of Aragua.

Those of Turmero and Guacara are the most numerous.

They are of small stature, but less squat than the Chaymas; their eyes denote more vivacity and intelligence, owing less perhaps to a diversity in the race, than to a superior state of civilization. They work like freemen by the day. Though active and laborious during the short time they allot to labour, yet what they earn in two months is spent in one week, in the purchase of strong liquors at the small inns, of which unhappily the numbers daily increase.

W o saw at Turmero the remains of the assembled militia 2 K 2

500

GREAT ZAMANG TREE.

of the country, and their appearance alone sufficiently indicated that these valleys had enjoyed for ages undisturbed peace. The capitan-general, in order to give a new impulse to the military service, had ordered a grand review ; and the battalion of Turmero, in a mock fight, had fired on that of La Victoria.

Our host, a lieutenant of the militia, was never weary of describing to us the danger of these manœuvres, which seemed more burlesque than imposing.

With what rapidity do nations, apparently the most pacific, acquire military habits ! Twelve years afterwards, those; valleys of Aragua, those peaceful plains of La Victoria and Turmero, the defile of Cabrera, and the; fertile banks of the lake of Valencia, became the scenes of obstinate and sanguinary conflicts between the natives and the troops of the mother-country.

South of Turmero, a mass of limestone mountains advances into the plain, separating two fine sugar-plantations, Guayavita and Paja. The latter belongs to the family of Count Tovar, who have property in every part of the province. Near Guayavita, brown iron-ore has been discovered.

To the north of Turmero, a granitic summit (the Chuao) rises in the Cordillera of the coast, from the top of which we discern at once the sea and the lake of Valencia. Crossing this rocky ridge, which runs towards the west farther than the eye can reach, paths somewhat difficult lead to the rich plantations of cacao on the coast, to Choroid, Turiamo, and Ocumare, noted alike for the fertility of the soil and the insalubrity of their climate. Turmero, Maracay, Cura, Guacara, every point of the valley of Aragua, has its mountain-road, which terminates at one of the small ports on the coast.

On quitting the village of Turmero, we discover, at a league distant, an object, which appears at the horizon Like a round hillock, or tumulus, covered with vegetation. It is neither a hill, nor a group of trees close to each other, but one single tree, the famous zamang del Guayre, known throughout the province for the enormous extent of its branches, which form a hemispheric head five hundred and seventy-six feet in circumference. The zamang is a line species of mimosa, and its tortuous branches are divided by

GREAT ZAMANG TREE.

501

bifurcation. Its delicate and tender foliage was agreeably relieved on the azure of the sky. W e stopped a long time under this vegetable roof. The trunk of the zamang del Guayre,* which is found on the road from Turmero to Maracay, is only sixty feet high, and nine thick; but its real beauty consists in the form of its head. The branches extend like an immense umbrella, and bend toward the ground, from which they remain at a uniform distance of twelve or fifteen feet. The circumference of this head is so regular, that, having traced different diameters, I found them one hundred and ninety-two and one hundred and eighty-six feet. One side of the tree was entirely stripped of its foliage, owing to the drought; but on the other side there remained both leaves and flowers. Tillandsias, lorantheĂŚ, Cactus Pitahaya, and other parasite plants, cover its branches, and crack the bark. The inhabitants of these villages, but particularly the Indians, hold in veneration the zamang del Guayre, which the first conquerors found almost in the same state in which it now remains. Since it has been observed with attention, no change has appeared in its thickness or height. This zamang must be at least as old as the Orotava dragon-tree. There is something solemn and majestic in the aspect of aged trees; and the violation of these monuments of nature is severely punished in countries destitute of monuments of art. W e heard with satisfaction that the present proprietor of the zamang had brought an action against a cultivator who had been guilty of cutting off a branch. The cause was tried, and the tribunal condemned the offender. W e find near Turmero and the Hacienda de Cura other zamangs, having trunks larger than that of Guayre, but their hemispherical heads are not of equal extent.

The culture and population of the plains augment in the direction of Cura and Guacara, on the northern side of the lake. The valleys of Aragua contain more than 52,000 inhabitants, on a space thirteen leagues in length, and two in width. This is a relative population of two thousand souls on a square league. The village or rather the small * The mimos of La Guayre; zamang being the Indian name for the genera mimosa, desmanthus, and acacia. The place where the tree is found is called El Guayre.

502

HOSPITABLE FRIENDS.

town of Maracay was heretofore the centre of the indigo plantations, when this branch of colonial industry was in its greatest prosperity. The houses are all of masonry, and every court contains cocoa-trees, which rise above the habitations. The aspect of general wealth is still more striking at Maracay, than at Turmero. The anil, or indigo, of these provinces has always been considered in commerce as equal and sometimes superior to that of Guatemala. The indigo plant impoverishes the soil, where it is cultivated during a long series of years, more than any other. The lands of Maracay, Tapatapa, and Turmero, are looked upon as exhausted; and indeed the produce of indigo has been constantly decreasing. But in proportion as it has diminished in the valleys of Aragua, it has increased in the province of Varinas, and in the burning plains of Cucuta, where, on the banks of the Rio Tachira, virgin land yields an abundant produce, of the richest colour.

W e arrived very late at Maracay, and the persons to whom we were recommended were absent. The inhabitants perceiving our embarrassmeut, contended with each other in offering to lodge us, to place our instruments, and take care of our mules. It has been said a thousand times, but the traveller always feels desirous of repeating it again, that the Spanish colonies are the land of hospitality; they are so even in those places where industry and commerce have diffused wealth and improvement. A family of Canarians received us with the most amiable cordiality; an excellent repast was prepared, and everything was carefully avoided that might act as any restraint on us. The master of the house, Don Alexandro Gonzales, was travelling on commercial business, and his young wife had lately had the happiness of becoming a mother.

She was transported with joy when she heard that on our return from the Rio Negro we should proceed by the banks of the Orinoco to Angostura, where her husband was. We were to bear to him the tidings of the birth of his first child. In those countries, as among the ancients, travellers are regarded as the safest means of communication.

There are indeed posts established, but they make such great circuits that private persons seldom entrust them with letters for the llanos or savannahs of the interior. The child was brought to us at the moment

NATIVE MANNER OF LIVING.

503

of our departure: we had seen him asleep at night, but it was deemed indispensable that we should see him awake in the morning. W e promised to describe his features exactly to his father, but the sight of our books and instruments somewhat chilled the mother's confidence. She said " that in a long journey, amidst so many cares of another kind, we might well forget the colour of her child's eyes."

On the road from Maracay to the Hacienda de Cura we enjoyed from time to time the view of the lake of Valencia.

A n arm of the granitic chain of the coast stretches southward into the plain. It is the promontory of Portachuelo which would almost close the valley, were it not separated by a narrow defile from the rock of La Cabrera. This place has acquired a sad celebrity in the late revolutionary wars of Caracas; each party having obstinately disputed its possession, as opening the way to Valencia, and to the Llanos.

La Cabrera now forms a peninsula: not sixty years ago it was a rocky island in the lake, the waters of which gradually diminish. W e spent seven very agreeable days at the Hacienda da Cura, in a small habitation surrounded by thickets.

W e lived after the manner of the rich in this country; we bathed twice, slept three times, and made three meals in the twenty-four hours. The temperature of the water of the lake is rather warm, being from twenty-four to twenty-live degrees; but there is another cool and delicious Dathing-place at Toma, under the shade of ceibas and large zamangs, in a torrent gushing from the granitic mountains of the Rincon del Diablo. In entering this bath, we had not to fear the sting of insects, but to guard against the little brown hairs which cover the pods of the Dolichos pruriens. When these small hairs, well characterised by the name of picapica, stick to the body, they excite a violent irritation on the skin; the dart is felt, but the cause is unperceived.

Near Cura we found all the people occupied in clearing the ground covered with mimosa, sterculia, and Coccoloba excoriata, lor the purpose of extending the cultivation of cotton. This product, which partly supplies the place of indigo, has succeeded so well during some years, that the cotton-tree now grows wild on the borders of the lake of

504

PLANTATIONS OF THE COAST.

Valencia. W e have found shrubs of eight or ten feet high entwined with bignonia and other ligneous creepers. The exportation of cotton from Caracas, however, is yet of small importance. It amounted at an average at La Guayra scarcely to three or four hundred thousand pounds in a year; but including all the ports of the Capitania-general, it arose, on account of the flourishing culture of Cariaco, Nueva Barcelona, and Maracaybo, to more than 22,000 quintals.

The cotton of the valleys of Aragua is of fine quality, being inferior only to that of Brazil; for it is preferred to that of Carthagena, St. Domingo, and the Caribbee Islands. The cultivation of cotton extends on one side of the lake from Maracay to Valencia; and on the other from Guayca to Guigue. The large plantations yield from sixty to seventy thousand pounds a year.

During our stay at Cura we made numerous excursions to the rocky islands (which rise in the midst of the lake of Valencia,) to the warm springs of Mariara, and to the lofty granitic mountain called El Cucurucho de Coco. A dangerous and narrow path leads to the port of Turiamo and the celebrated cacao-plantations of the coast. In all these excursions we were agreeably surprised, not only at the progress of agriculture, but at the increase of a free laborious population, accustomed to toil, and too poor to rely on the assistance of slaves. White and mulatto farmers had everywhere small separate establishments.

Our host, whose father had a revenue of 4 0 , 0 0 0 piastres, possessed more lands than he could clear; he distributed them in the valleys of Aragua among poor families who chose to apply themselves to the cultivation o f cotton.

He endeavoured to surround his ample plantations with freemen, who, working as they chose, either in their own land or in the neighbouring plantations, supplied him with day-labourers at the time of harvest. Nobly occupied on the means best adapted gradually to extinguish the slavery of the blacks in these provinces, Count Tovar flattered himself with the double hope o f rendering slaves less necessary to the landholders, and furnishing the freedmen with opportunities of becoming fanners. On departing for Europe he had parcelled out and let a part of the lands of Cura, which extend towards the west at the foot of the rock of Las Viruelas.

FREE AND SLAVE LABOUR.

505

Four years after, at his return to America, he found on this spot,finelycultivated in cotton, a little hamlet of thirty or forty houses, which is called Punta Zamuro, and which we visited with him. The inhabitants of this hamlet are almost all mulattos, Zamboes, or free blacks. This example of letting out land has been happily followed by several other great proprietors.

The rent is ten piastres for a fanega of ground, and is paid in money or in cotton. As the small farmers are often in want, they sell their cotton at a very moderate price. They dispose of it even before the harvest; and the advances, made by rich neighbours, place the debtor in a situation of dependence, which frequently obliges him to offer his services as a labourer. The price of labour is cheaper here than in France. A freeman, working as a day-labourer (peon), is paid in the valleys of Aragua and in the llanos four or five piastres per month, not including food, which is very cheap on account of the abundance of meat and vegetables. I love to dwell on these details of colonial industry, because they serve to prove to the inhabitants of Europe, a fact which to the enlightened inhabitants of the colonies has long ceased to be doubtful, viz., that the continent of Spanish America can produce sugar, cotton, and indigo by free hands, and that the unhappy slaves are capable of becoming peasants, farmers, and landholders.

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